ThP's Collection

Collecting
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Hi everyone! As I’ve written in the welcome thread, I collect pokemon since they’ve arrived here in Italy.
I love to collect complete sets, my main goal is to collect complete WOTC, EX, HS and XY expansions. I’m collecting just holos and ultra-rares from DP/Pt and BW. For the complete sets I prefer to have english cards, but I’ve came to a compromise: I’ll always prefer english if given choice, but I’ll accept italian cards as well. Either way I’ll never succeed to collect all those cards.
I opened lots of booster boxes, even quite rare ones, 5 years ago: Neo Destiny and Revelation, both the Gym, FRLG, TR Returns, Aquapolis, Expedition and even more. We could buy them in english for dirt cheap in Italy in those times. I don’t regret opening them, pulling corrected Blaine’s Charizard from Gym Challenge, Latias Star from EX Deoxys or Shining Charizard from Destiny was a real blast.
I also want to complete exclusive japanese sets, like VS, vending and Web, in addition to a lot of promo series, both western and japanese, some of them need more appreciation in my opinion.
I’m really patient with the search of cards I want, I like to find low or at least fair prices, even if I have to wait years for them: pokemon cards are not my only collection, so I have to split the budget.
I want to start with two cards I’ve been looking for since years: I remember seeing Alakazam back in my childhood, maybe in some kind of magazine, and falling in love with it, even if I totally didn’t knew what card it was.
I’ve managed to find him and his companion Gengar NM for a good price and I decided to take 'em.

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Then there’s my recently acquired Prerelease Clefable. I struggled quite a bit to find one at a decent price, and finally I took advantage of a paypal 10 euros coupon to make an high offer in an auction, winning it. I really like this card, like almost every stamped old school card.

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And, final card for the first post, a Murkrow signed by my favourite tcg illustrator himself: Mr. Mitsuhiro Arita. The card is not illustrated by him, but I liked a lot the silver autograph. I’m in the process of obtaining a signed Neo Revelation Kingdra, too.
The card was traded from a guy who was finalist at world '99 or 2000 (don’t remember) and who showed me lots of documents about it.

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I beg your pardon for the poor photos, next ones will be better shots :stuck_out_tongue:

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Great cards,I realy like the vending series as well and feel it is undervalued.I have the full normal sets but do not have any of the send away holos yet,well done on getting the Alakazam and Gengar,they are very hard to find in that condition. The signed card is cool,its the first time I have seen a card signed in japanese :slight_smile:

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The Masaki’s are great adds to your collection. Congratulations. Since you’re from Italy, did you ever come across an Italian “W” stamped Pikachu. I bought one years ago from a reputable dealer. I also remember advertisements promoting an Italian Poketour with the Italian “W” stamped Pikachu as a give away card. Just curious since, I’ve never seen any mention of the card in the last 10 years…

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Thanks guys, Masaki promos are a really important goal for me, their artwork and the way they were distributed are so peculiar that they have to be in my collection.

@thebeezneez108 Yeah, signing in japanese was an old habit of Arita, I’ve seen that he makes autographs in western characters now. Vending regular sets are wonderful, I love how thematic they are and how they run through the places and the locations of the original games. I hope to complete them someday!

@avalanche1313 Yessir, there actually was an italian W-stamped pikachu, I own one of those. They gave it away with Topolino, a Mickey Mouse themed weekly magazine, really popular in our country.
Here you have it! I included in the pic a little (and valueless) italian gem. Even if the card is english, the stamp refers to LPP league, a pretty famous card store here in Italy. As far as I know it’s the only initiative of this genre we had. They were originally distributed through the said league, but later some stock fund began surfacing and they’ve been distributed at Pokemon Day and similar events.

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That’s great information. Thanks…

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@aj1 looks like you have another Pikachu to add to your list. XD

Excellent collection. I almost got a signed Gyarados card from the illustrator but decided to pass on it as I didn’t have the money at the time. :slightly_frowning_face:

Love Alakazam and that card. I wish you luck on the completion of that set. I’ve heard it’s not very easy. :dizzy_face:

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I have the pikachu italian W stamp :wink:

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Nice! Didn’t realize I overlooked it in your collection. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Beautiful cards! I like your taste. :blush:

Masaki Gengar is one of the most appreciable cards IMO.

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@azulryu thanks! The guy who traded me the signed card also had a signed Legendary Collection Gyarados, but I really disliked the autograph on that, it was really rushed. It ended up in the hands of a trusted friend of mine, maybe one day I’ll manage to take it from his hands anyway!

@soulwind Thanks, I agree, Gengar is one of the most beautiful cards out there. The artwork is not complex or sophisticated by any mean, but it goes so well with the background and with the layout of the cards, that makes it one of my top ten favourite cards.

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Well if you ever do and feel like trading/selling it, let me know. :stuck_out_tongue:

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I’ve currently got nothing new to show you, I’m waiting for a Rumble TCG sealed set to arrive from Poland (crossing fingers about this shipping, never got anything from Poland). I never paid particular attention to that set, cause it went for pretty cheap on ebay. But it’s quite of time that it began disappearing from everywhere, so I decided to finally buy a set.

And to keep the thread going I’ll show you some of my favourite cards ever: the T-Promos Dragons. I love ALL the T-promos, they have such awesome artworks and I like the fact that each set is a thematic trio. Also they give attention to the often underrated intermediate starter evolutions.

I managed to get the Dragon trio in an essentially mint condition (I guess they would easily earn a 9, they’re quite well centered too) for a decent price (40-45 bucks shipped).

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And hey, we’re talking about Dragonites, what about this one? :stuck_out_tongue:

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I love the t promos! Jus like the vs set they are artist specific which I personally is great!
That erikas dragonite is sickkkk!! Makes me crave a kogas pidgeot!

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I’ve never heard of Erika draonite. Where is that from?

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Custom card maybe?

The artwork is well thought out in this Dragonite, just amazing.

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Very nice cards man ^^

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Yep, custom card mates! I’ll definitely make a Koga’s Pidgeot some day!
And cause we don’t want it to be a blank reply, let’s add the arrivals for today!

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Rocket’s Hitmonchan was nice to get, because it’s one of the two steep Winner cards (along with Rocket’s Mewtwo, which I already had), the other ones will be pretty inexpensive to get.

And the Stormfront Charizard, one of the few Zard cards I was still missing. I still think mr. Arita didn’t manage to replicate the glory and the majesty of the original artwork, IMO the face is too deformed and bizarre in this revamp, but he outdid himself regarding tecnique and background (fairly superior to the bland base set one).

Nice sleeves are always a nice touch. Plus, I paid around 15 bucks shipped, so I’m pretty happy about it.