What card in your collection were you most reluctant to spend the money on or was overall the most difficult to acquire?

[BinderSaur]

I’m having a tough time with Base Set Venusaur. If I find one in my price range, it’s beat up, and if I find one in mint condition, it’s too expensive.

[Ratequaza]

There was no card where I was reluctant to spend the money on it, in case of doubt I just decide against buying a card. But regarding the most difficult to acquire card, Im gonna cite my collection thread:

@Ratequaza

And here finally comes the undoubtedly hardest artwork to complete. This is the Staraptor from Red Flash, released in Japanese in 2015. Now, the first edition version (like all cards I’ve not specifically commented on) was relatively easy to find. The unlimited one however is a whole different beast. By the XY era, the first edition print runs of Japanese sets were enough to satisfy almost all of the demand, so many Japanese XY era sets only received very small unlimited print runs, covering maybe 5-10% of the total supply. Like other species collectors before, I experienced the same thing: Initially you of course know that Japanese at that time still had first edition and unlimited, but since you didn’t have any trouble getting the other unlimited cards before, you don’t think much about it, until you arrive at one of the notorious sets and realize that you can neither find the unlimited card for sale anywhere, nor even find any pictures of it to begin with. For me, I first tried to get this card in April of 2023 and it took me until last week to finally hold it in my hands, so in total a little over 2.5 years. The journey to that point wasn’t easy, even if the purchase in the end was. First, I tried to just regularly post on the r/pkmntcgtrades subreddit, in the beginning without a concrete price tag, then later with increasing ones first offering $50 for the card in EX+ condition and later increasing the offer to $80 as well as offering a finder’s fee, while I similarly also started my WTB thread here. Both lead to encouragement from others, but unfortunately not to me finding the card. In the meantime, I also tried my luck with bulk purchases from Japanese stores stating that they don’t differentiate between first edition and unlimited cards, which lead to me now possesing 30+ copies of the first edition card, but without success.

I also tried my luck with opening the two unlimited Red Flash booster packs I found for sale / was notified about (curiously hoping for them to be light to have a better chance for the uncommon card I was looking for), but didn’t pull the Staraptor. I did pull a Staralili though and during my search for Staraptor also found two unlimited Staravias for sale, so I have the whole evolution line in unlimited now.

Anyway, besides those measures I also:

1. Had someone create a WTB listing on Magi (Japanese TCG marketplace) for me
2. Created a Trade listing on the Cardova marketplace once I learned about that
3. Created a request on Otsukai, both on the original site and after the relaunch
4. Asked vendors at two card shows if they had the card in their bulk
5. Manually searched the thousands of Japanese bulk cards of a newly opened TCG store in my city
6. Hung up a physical wanted poster there for a while offering 50€ for that card
7. Went to a card convention with a meme printed out and attached to my shirt including the same offer

None of these things ended up being successful though, so earlier this year, I turned to probably the most insane method yet and offered a XY8 unlimited secret rare Mewtwo for trade that I found while searching for Staraptor. I also posted it to my Instagram story and while some people were interested due to the offer being frankly pretty insane (not in the good way for me lmao), no one had the Staraptor card, so even that lead to nowhere. I later graded the card and sold it for around 300€, so that’s basically how much I was willing to give away in trade value at that point for what I initially thought was just another Japanese bulk card. However then, a little over two weeks ago, my habits finally paid off. I have only talked about the extraordinary measures I had taken so far, but there were of course also ordinary ones at that point baked into my daily routine (it still feels a bit weird to not search for Staraptor on Zenmarket after my daily 5 minutes of Duolingo haha). Every day, for basically since I posted my first WTB thread on Reddit in spring 2023, I searched all new listings under “XY8” on Mercari and Yahoo Auctions and after a while I also started to search around weekly for “ムクホーク XY8” and just “ムクホーク” (Staraptors Japanese name) to catch everything I might have missed that was not specifying the set. The latter is what ultimately lead to success: On Thursday, October 30, I was sitting in university, near the lecture hall, waiting for my class to start and hoped to maybe have a chat with another student who also tended to show up relatively early. She didn’t though in that case, so I figured that I may as well do my weeky ムクホーク-search to kill some time and there it was: A Mercari bulk listing of miscellaneous Staraptor cards priced at 300 Yen.

Now as you can see, only a first edition Staraptor is clearly visible in the main picture, however there was another one where the area of the symbol was covered. I had that a few times with other listings before and the card in the further pictures always turned out to be first edition too, but that time it was not.

I was more than amazed that I had finally found my grail card and probably pulled my debit card out of my wallet faster than ever before to quickly buy the card and then only had to wait until it safely arrived. So that was the story of how I got my Staraptor grail that I promised to tell in this post. It really shows the beauty of niche Japanese unlimited cards: You can offer three digit trade values for a bulk card and it still doesn’t work out, but when you do find the card, you pay less for it than for the shipping of most cards.

[DeekBoy]

Back in 2019 I was very hesitant to bid on a PSA 8 gold star Treecko and PSA 7 gold star Mudkip lot. I remember the thought of spending $500 on cards was a bit too steep for me. I would rarely talk about my spending with friends but I bought it up to my buddy and he thought I was insane. My wife ending up saying I should since I really wanted them for the set. I decided to pull the trigger and won the auction for $482.

[lemonpeels]

My corocoro mew, at the time a couple hundred felt like a lot, it was the most I’d spent on a card. But, I really wanted it as my grail. When I pulled the trigger, it ended up getting hit with an import fee from Japan for an extra 100 which made me second guess myself that much more. Fast forward to today and it’s still one of if not my favourite card, and seeing how the market’s gone crazy I feel fortunate to have picked it up when I did.

[DeekBoy]

I’m not a Japanese collector but I still really want to add one of these to my collection at some point

[ArcticLapras]

@Ratequaza

in case of doubt I just decide against buying a card.

Definitely. Otherwise regrets are to be expected.

I guess for me it´s the Ho-oh first edition PSA 10. I´ve been wanting to buy that card since 2020, but never found one within the EU (when buying outside of the EU the import duties were just too much for me). Also, the card dipped pretty significantly between 2022 and 2024, so when a card popped up in Italy, I went for it.

[eevee]

I feel like this is a majority for almost all cards nowadays lol.

[BabaDeathLord]

Its difficult to talk about it, bringing back painful memories
The 178/132 and 187/132 Gardevoirs of the recent ME01 Mega Evolution serie. Ive gone crazy and opened two displays (+ the ETB and other things) in the hope of finding one because it was THE gardevoir serie of all time with 4 of the nicest cards (in my opinion) : did not even get the 159/132 which is a lower rarity
So much wasted money and trash cards left afterward, never again

So yeah I did not bought them yet since they are so pricey (specially the french versions sadge) and I created a psychological blockage now lol

[SolemnStar]

difficulty and price don’t always go hand in hand. And that is my journey as I am a fan of weirder niche things. While sure, more than the average card, aren’t big bucks or anything in the grand scheme of things. For me, one that was kind of difficult to source for my legend maker binder was the kraze club skitty. At first I took a pretty roughed up copy just to have. Then last year one in pretty good shape popped up and I was able to win it in auction. So I’m really happy to finally have a nice copy of that card. Double difficult because of it being a card from europe, so not many filter over to america.

[bbobrob]

Haven’t heard of this card before!

[SolemnStar]

most haven’t. It was/is(?) a tweenager magazine from the 2000s. really weird one.

[octaane]

For me, the PSA shining charizard that I cracked to finish off my neo-era collection. That one stung.

[mrbubbles]

This is my feeling as well.

I want to buy the Tohoku’s and the Fukuoka’s Pikachu from the recently released lottery boxes. I have been debating with myself for weeks now on if I should pay the secondary market prices. To be very honest, when I was finishing my other promo sets, the prices all seemed ok because they somehow felt worth it for the cards I was getting. But for these promos, although I love the artworks, just the base prices is keeping me from thinking if they are actually worth it.

Cheers!

[lemonpeels]

Wow! Gotta respect the dedication Happy you found your grail in the end!

[Slade]

For me, had to be my MS…

For being only Pop 29, you are dealing with a very small pool of people that even had these cards as well as dealing with people that aren’t willing to “make a deal” for a trophy card.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DHW16B4STU7/?igsh=MW5jZzNsNnRna3Yzeg==

Went back and forth a lot with this person. I ended up just paying what he wanted to be able to aquire the card. Being a card so little on the market at reasonable prices, It was now or never. It is the top card of my collection (above others that are worth more) due to the history, rarity, and era it came out in.

It will be the second to last card I ever sell in my collection besides this card:

[peter]

It is really a beautiful card. I’ve had a graded copy in the past, but last year I finally found a sealed copy. I considered buying a sealed copy from Japan, but I was too reluctant to import something that expensive even before the tariffs.

This disco holo Blastoise was my most expensive purchase at the time, and my most reluctant purchase by far. But I had wanted a disco holo for a very long time, and I snagged it when someone mispriced them: 12 CGC 10 Disco Test Prints Sell for Cheap on Fanatics Collect

[Slade]

Aw so you were the one that bought that sealed copy. That guy tried to sell it off to me at a CAC. Never really understood the attractiveness of authenticating the card still in the cellophane. Especially since there was a piece of ripped paper on the back of that cellophane packet when he showed me this sealed copy. (I see he finally got it off before grading it)

I just felt it diluted the clarity of the card & holo. But it would have gotten a 9 due to centering, so it’s either a 9 or this unique way.

Either way, congrats not a lot of people at all get even the chance to admire a card like this at all

[peter]

Thanks! Yeah I plan to crack and put it into a smaller one touch, as I’m afraid of all the movement in the slab.

Even if this was a psa 10 candidate, I don’t think I’d open it. One day I’ll get a separate copy or something.

Still kicking myself for missing that sub 15k psa 10 in the summer.

[kakukaku]

Any time I convince myself to get one of these in a language for my Kecleon collection. 11 of these Zeraoras cost more than 183 Kecleon cards (not inc. Art Academy). These are so expensive and you can barely see Kecleon cause of the card writing.

[KabutopsMaster]

This mf