- It was the first English set and history might mean something to people?
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Anecdotal at best but I thought I’d throw this out there as a counter point: At regionals last year I played a game against a 10 year old (who mercilessly stomped me btw, not the point) and his most prized card in his collection was a base set Rattata of all things. He understood the history and really liked the art.
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You got stomped by Youngster Joey?
Did he look something like this:
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This made my entire day better. And yes, he looked exactly like that. His favorite Pokemon is Victini and he had a little figurine he put on his playmat for good luck.
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As the card values increase, my nostalgia decreases.
Was fun collecting, but buying the card is nothing compared to opening the pack.
Eventually I will sell all of my collection, except for the base set holy grails… until the prices can buy me a nice house.
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I agree he likes the history as I do. It’s the first set ever. Nothing will ever come close to it and replace it. But does he really like the “art”? He says so because he sees people everywhere saying omg base set is the best artwork, it’s amazing etc etc. But Little Joey understands the value of the card, it’s history and is just wanting to be accepted by his peers. If he says base set is crap, he gets shunned by a million people. Get a kid who doesn’t know history and ask him to pick between a full art card and a base set and you’ll see what they pick 9/10 times. Which is my point in the first place. It’s the same with when you attach an artist to an art and prize it at 10 million dollars people would flock to say it’s beautiful. Keep it anonymous and cheap and let’s see how of them would even second glance at it. It’s psychology 101. History doesn’t equal to amazing art. I personally have a full set of shadowless just for the “history” but I don’t have any “sentimental” attachment to it as it wasn’t my childhood, I never opened the packs and I never got to play the game with it. Same with thousands of people right now. And hence you see people paying “crazy” prizes for modern. But I see a lot of people are already triggered. Guess I did my job of posting an unpopular opinion
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I think it’s pretty widely accepted that CGC has better cases than PSA, it’s the awful label that people can’t get past
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You might not like it but I’m not sure why you think other people can’t think base set has objectively good art. You’re really telling me 5bans backgroundless textureless cg art is better than hand painted watercolor art?
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I’m not saying you don’t have to like it. I’m sharing “my” opinion. To be specific “my unpopular opinion” . Everyone is free to like what they want and choose their favourite art and sets
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Now I’m the last person to choose shitty5ban art over good Base Sugimori/Arita art, but let’s be honest. There are at least some decent 5ban artworks and a fair share of shitty backgroundless artworks in Base.
Not to mention that modern sets don’t exclusively consist of 5ban, there are a lot of great creative new illustrators.
I’m all for the original sets, just want to balance out the discussion a bit.
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Well merciers said he came across a kid that really liked his rattata card and you seemed to think it was impossible for him to genuinely like the art
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Obviously theres going to be exceptions. Every gen has at least some amazing art and some terrible art but im talking about ‘generally’. Generally, most base set art is handmade watercolor, or at least looks like watercolor to me, especially the holos which is what people usually care about the most. And generally most of the ‘rare’ cards, at least during sun and moon as 5ban art that left a lot to be desired, with the normal, full art, and rainbow gx’s. The tag teams were a breath of fresh air which is why theyre fan favorites but their full arts are still the same cg backgroundless art. And while that secret rare you linked does look nice, it does not compare to any of the watercolors from base set. And the ‘bad example’ you linked of magneton still manages to look better than 99% of 5ban artwork to me.
And you are right, base set does have a lot of ‘backgroundless’ cards. especially with the holos which is why I prefer newer wotc sets which have more character to them but yet the backgrounds still give more character and appeal to base set holos than most of the 5ban cards. There are some 5ban cards that look better than some of the worst base set cards, but on average, its no competition; base set art blows 5ban completely out of the water. My main argument to fizzy though was, he seemed to give base set art no credit as if someone cant appreciate it regardless knowing the history or not which I think is ridiculous.
Also a final note. Bad wotc cg cards were made with 90s technology. 5ban cards today have no excuse 
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I never said I’m not giving base set any credit. I literally said there’s no replacement to base because of its significance and history and the nostalgia to the kids that grew up with it. Stop twisting the words to highlight your own agenda.
Also my point was 9/10 kids who don’t know about the history will pick a “shinier” Card than a “subtle” art. How do I know this? Because I ran this experiment during my travels. I didn’t wanna bring it up and deep dive to this level but here goes: I’m a marketer and on my travels maybe the marketer and the love for Pokémon cards clashed. I had a couple base (unlimited ofocurse) and some full arts with me.
Experiment: walk to individual kids and group of kids likewise in countries that don’t have Pokémon cards or kids that have never seen Pokémon cards (I did this in India, Bhutan, slovakia and Hungary)
Pre requisite: They needed to have watched at least some of the anime or know what Pokémon is to have some context
Result: 9/10 preferred the the modern art
When I explicitly stated and emphasized the base card was the first ever released card I had close to 70-30 / 60-40 still in the favour of modern
When I told them the prices of base set (in Holos) and the modern card the answers switched to 70-30 in favour of base
Same size: Approx 75 kids
Now think of what you want of this. That’s up to you. My initial discussion was also when someone said they don’t know why people spent money on modern rather than wotc and I replied by saying people buy what they like or grow up with so I don’t see a problem in spending money on any modern set.
It is you that needs to get off the “water colour-hand made” high horse and take a step back and stop calling everything crap that isn’t that. A digital/cgi art is also art. I can’t objectively call my friends who are in the digital art field and tell them what they do is garbage because it’s not hand made and is not “water colour” . What they do takes time, effort and an equal amount of skill. I appreciate all Pokémon cards hand made or digital instead of being a base/wotc sheep. I’m sure the digital artists poured their heart and soul in their cards too. I love skyridge as much as I love roaring skies. And sure everyone has their likes and dislikes and everyone is entitled to their opinion. But don’t come and tell me 99% of modern is all garbage and wotc is the almighty best because it’s hand made and water coloured.
Rant finished. Peace. Over and out.
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There are exceptions. I once showed some younger kids a light wigglytuff from Neo and they all wanted to trade me Megas and ex’s for them. One kid offered me 6 Megas/ex cards
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For sure. My own experiment had 9/10 as an average but some groups did have a 50-50 wotc to modern. Hence we are all different. But as I work in corporate, strategies are always based on the majority unfortunately. I would 100% take a skyridge art over a lot of the megas. It personally appeals to me a lot more. But as a marketer you always have to be unbiased. Hence I mention I appreciate all art, digital or claymation or handmade. As every artist is unique and I’m sure they poured their soul into creating what’s best for them and I appreciate those pieces just for that, if not anything else
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That Viridian Forest card is awesome. I’m gonna have to pick one up.
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It is! The Secret Rare Stadiums are by far my favorite 5ban artworks so far. Their style works really well in them and they look fantastic together!
pkmncards.com/?s=type%3Astadium+rarity%3Arare-secret+artist%3A5ban-graphics&display=images&sort=date&order=
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This is absolutely true. @pokecollectoramy mentioned this in another thread with no response–how in the world is it healthy for a market to have someone very publicly buy a card for $25k and immediately try and flip it for $70k? I wouldn’t dare to predict what this will actually lead to, but nevertheless I’m relatively concerned about what this kind of activity (with increasing frequency) means for the health of the market–and have not heard anyone “influential” other than @jacobm9 show an ounce of concern. Of course, I’m not implying, nor do I believe, that the whole foundation of the current demand for cards is a sham and it’ll crumble, but I’m just surprised by the general conclusion that this (& other related rapid-flipping and hype-generating activity) can only be a net positive for everyone in the hobby.
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Thanks for the tag. That other thread got closed for whatever reason but this is what I wrote:
“Nothing against Logan or people trying to make money in speculative markets but I’m genuinely curious if people here think it’s “good” or “healthy” for the market to have someone buy a card, make a video about it, and then use his oversized reach to try to sell the card for the 3x the price (two weeks after purchase) based off the price of an UNSOLD eBay listing?”
The way @jacobm9 was treated in that other thread as well was disgusting. Anyone who has seen speculative frenzies like this is in other markets before is well within their rights to sound some alarms when warranted.
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Thanks for sharing! I now have 6 more cards to buy lol
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