That’s true but original base had so many printings that the only collectible set is 1st ed base. Shadowless and unlimited unless it’s a 9/10 is just seen as another card that shouldn’t be graded.
Yugioh is also more of a player base from what I’ve been seeing kinda similar to video games where grading isn’t as big of a deal
For sure, I just meant more so in the sense that there are for example Base Set Charizard collectors who will collect any/all Charizards regardless of re-print due to the variations in them. For example, differences in the holo or other factors. With Yu-Gi-Oh, the vast majority of re-prints have the same holo or look and have no discernible differences for the most part. The only thing that really changes is the set release number/name. This is where I feel that Pokemon has done a better job with re-prints. They may re-use the exact same art, but at least the actual card will look somewhat different to a point you may still want to collect it at some point. There just seems to be a bit more incentive to me for collectors in Pokemon in comparison.
It makes sense that Yu-Gi-Oh applies the approach they do for players though, probably to save costs and make the cards more affordable for playing than worrying about collectibility in the longer term as that is where it tends to be more successful.
Don’t have anything constructive to add. I’m just down v bad for classic Yugioh right now. I’ve spent a ton of time this week scouring for old 1st edition cards and building two more GOAT format decks to play with friends.
Also, I’m incidentally building towards this GOAT format Cube I found on Cube Cobra. Seems like it would be a blast to draft
I for one will always welcome another fellow cube enjoyer to the forum.
Was going through my Yugioh stuff today to pull out a few cards I will be selling so, while I was there, I took a few pics of some (not for sale) stuff in my collection. I have more that I may put up here in the future but I just snapped a few for now.
I have maximum nostalgia for Yugioh, but minimal technical knowledge. So many great memories playing with friends. Thanks for sharing your cards they look great.
Beautiful cards! Love reading the story behind each one
I like the art of newer Yugioh. Didn’t play the game myself as it’s too complicated, but I do watch Jap/Tw youtubers play the game (with explanation) when there are new ‘clans’ or mechanics.
Looking back on it, my decision to collect Pokemon instead of Yugioh came down to one card.
I loved the anime and the card art. The holos are still the best of any TCG. I got into Pokemon for 2 years as a kid before abandoning it to play and collect Yugioh (the game was a lot more simple back then). It’s how I got into binders, sleeves, toploaders as well. I already had my favorite Dragon cards. I had a Dragon-Spellcaster deck. And I also had my favorite Dark Paladin cards including the MFC 1st Edition Alt Art which I got through the original mail-in offer.
I’d still probably be collecting it today if I hadn’t decided to one day buy 3 Pokemon packs for nostalgia and opened Shining Gyarados in the final pack. I immediately shifted course.
Digimon will always have my favorite art style, Yugioh with its holos, but Gyarados is where my collecting heart has been for the past 20+ years.
Still love the Yugioh holos and have a few but I can only collect so much.
Man, I hope you kept hold of that corrected Dark Paladin as it’s worth a fair bit now and easily the rarest variant (can imagine a lot of people didn’t know about the exchange offer at the time or just didn’t want to mail off their ‘error’ Paladins…if you could actually pull one with ultras only being 1 in 12 packs and MFC having around 9-10 ultras in the pool of potential pulls).
I actually prefer the front-facing art of the error art but believe I am in the minority on that one.
I kept a hold of it for 15 years before folks pointed out their value. Graded it and got a 10. Sold it to a former member here and paid off a student loan, bought a few Gyarados high wants, and spent the final portion to buy the regular 1st Edition misprint - came full circle. I prefer the art anyway so it suited me fine. I did like it’s history though, so I made sure to write an article about it.
In the end it was worth it. I didn’t have much personal attachment to the card, but the memory of it is a cool one. I still have my original DMG version which I have more personal attachment to. I played with it in my favorite deck and it’s still my favorite Yugioh card. It was also the reason why I decided to join the rebate since I had essentially had 2 copies.
Ah Yugioh. I slowly started to get into it around 2002, just as schoolyard Pokémon hype was about ready to be declared dead, and then collected through high school, mainly playing the game, while still quietly collecting Pokémon on the side.
Ancient Sanctuary was the last set I remember buying, though I picked up a few random cards from the GX era that looked cool…after that, the new card types & rules just completely left me behind.
Still have my stupidly outdated deck somewhere, but the most sentimental cards are in cases in a box - nothing particularly impressive, but there’s a complete 1st edition LOB Exodia in there. I should probably grade the 5 pieces tbh, but it’d pain me if all the parts somehow came back with different grades!
EDIT: Here he is:
Retro Pack 2 Blue-Eyes Shining Dragon is my favourite Yu-gi-oh card! And one of the best looking cards I’ve seen across any TCG 
A copy in PSA 9 is the only Yu-gi-oh card in my predominantly Pokemon collection 
How far along are you with your binder?
I am doing all of series 1, including boosters, and buying all the commons from boosters 1-7 is so laborious but also kinda fun. So many obscure card names that I lean heavily on the wiki and the serial number at the bottom of each card for ID
Dont grade them. They look so much better like this.
Differing grades would annoy me too. I think what I’m going to do is send my BEWD, Dark Magician, and REBD, to PSA to encase them as authentic. I played the crap out of them but want to protect and encapsulate them.
I’ve basically just got a few holes here and there across all 7 sets, mostly rares and holos. I got lucky with a massive binder joblot a few years ago that turned out to be mostly Vol.1-7 stuff with majority of the commons and quite a few of of the ultras + their parallel variants. Still missing a fair few of the big ones though such as B.Skull and the secret rares like Thousand Dragon and Great Moth.
One thing I did that helped was to find complete set lists online, and create a reference document that I printed out with the English names for all of the cards, broken down page-by-page of the binder. It helps me know what I need and where it goes, and is also handy to have as reference when just looking through the binder (I pretty much known all of the cards that we got in our sets but not the names of the stuff that didn’t get localised),.
Until doing the research I was confused as hell about some things. Like I how the Exodia legs come from the sets but the rest doesn’t. I had all these cards and was trying to find out why the set lists online were “wrong” lol. Turns out (as you may already know) that the head was a Tokyo Dome promo and the arms were promos given away in a guide book. Bizarre way of doing it! That’s how I ended up having an additional section in the binder after Vol.7 for promos and deck exclusive cards we didn’t get in the TCG i.e. Judge Man and Mountain in holo.
Yeah it’s one of my favourites for sure. I also have a lot of nostalgia for the Shining Dragon from the first Yugioh movie which I watched so many times.
The RP02 is just stunning in secret. They did print it again in secret in the Kaiba Legendary Collection set a few years back but it doesn’t look as nice for being a modern printing with completely different quality, card stock, and shade of printing on the main body of the card.
I do have one of the LCKC secret reprints that somebody customised for me by engraving/etching the foil to make it look almost like an Ultimate and it looks incredible.
Very nice! I think my story is very similar - Pokemon going out of fashion during the Neo/E-Series era at school and transitioning into Yugioh because of how cool and dark a lot of the arts were.
I don’t think you should grade them either. Just my penny’s worth. Obviously I don’t know about the condition but they probably would get mismatched grades, especially with one of the legs being notorious for being harder to grade (at least in North American print - unsure whether it’s the same in ‘E’ print).
That’s a great story (and pictures). Thanks for sharing! Always nice when something pays off in a big way down the line and helps you out IRL.
