What card took you a year or more to get

[Vertemes]

I’ve been looking at Rayquaza Gold stars, and I’m wondering what cards took you a long time to get/ collect? It can be in the past or it can be one you got just now!

[ddk]

Everything I currently don’t have that I wanted when I started collecting

[Quuador]

Any Pikachu released before late-2015 that I added to my collection after late-2016.

Eight of which I’ll lyk once I add them to my collection, but currently ten years and counting.

EDIT: But to give a recent example: the German Surf-Pikachu. I’ve first saw a picture of it in omahanime’s collection, when I joined the forum early 2016; then saw a second copy early/mid-2021 when Tom added it to his collection; but it wasn’t until this year when a third copy popped up for sale that I managed to add it to my collection, which arrived last month from my US middleman.

Greetz,
Quuador

[fourthstartcg]

It took me quite a long time to get my Rayquaza and Giratina EX lottery promos. I had some pretty specific requirements, the cards couldn’t be in perfect condition or they would be too expensive but they couldn’t be too beat up either. I wanted them ungraded so I could grade them myself. I had the requisite money saved, but I had to wait for awhile for the right listings to pop up on Yahoo auctions. I think there was probably at least a year or so of looking for the right cards until these popped up and I grabbed them!

[Quuador]

And although it’s not a card I personally took a year or more to get, I still remember this collection post of Eric (@tonysandlin), when he finally added a card to his collection he’d been looking for for nine years. Considering I had only been collecting for five years at that time, it was really inspiring and I was happy he finally found it to complete his Voltorb/Electrode collection (at the time).

@tonysandlin

The day has finally arrived! After 9 years of searching, my Japanese Legend 3 reverse holo unlimited Electrode Prime has been added to my collection. I’ve posted about this card numerous times, even starting a thread about the unlimited Legend set in hopes increase awareness for these extremely rare cards. Since I began searching for it in 2011, I’ve seen it only one time on a Japanese blog post, where I was unsuccessful in contacting the author to purchase the card. Last month, this one went up for sale on Y!J and a second one popped up shortly after on Mercari. Funny how that happens. Now that I have this card in hand, it feels like a huge weight has lifted off my shoulders.

Here is all of the Japanese Electrode Primes. In Japanese, the Prime cards have a reverse holo variant, the only language to do so.

This picture shows the three unlimited and reverse holo cards from the set. The Voltorb and Electrode were purchased two years ago, I believe, so it took a long time to find those as well.

Well, I don’t have much more to add to this. I’ve already talked about them a million times haha. There are 4 more packages incoming that contain some really nice cards that I’m excited to add.

Greetz,
Quuador

[Ratequaza]

I mean, it hasn’t been long since I talked about it, but this took me around 2.5 years to find:

[rabby250]

21.5 years. (Started looking on Sep 17, 2003; found and bought on Mar. 17, 2025)

This is literally how long I spent to find one offer I can buy from. No multiple copies to compare
condition, no waiting on saving enough budget.

Complete Pokemon Battle e Emerald Map Set!

Well, after 2 whole months of back and forth I think I can finally announce this: Yes, after looking for the card for more than 20 years, I finally got the demo Mattego. [image] [image] First of all some back story for those who didn’t know “that one card” we’re talking about: The Nintendo e-Reader released outside Japan is actually an upgraded version of the original e-Reader, which added support of connecting to Game Boy Advance or Nintendo Gamecube through link cables and feeding card …

[xileets]

The benefit of the increased attention and interest today is that there are often more options for buying than say 15 years ago. When I was starting my Arita Collection, I could NOT find this card. took about 3 years to track down, then overpaid cuz others wanted. Now…? lol

This one took me 5, but I didn’t overpay.

And here’s the reverse. I bought 2 of these for 7 USD each… from a JP retail. No problem. Now? You can’t find them…

[Bellsprout]

This card in a psa10. Can’t admit how much i’ve paid for it because it’s a stupid amount. I’ve only seen it pop once.

[Metapod_museum]

Metapod Base set korean unlimited. +4 years

[thurco]

What's your most recent purchase?

After a long long search, I’ve finally managed to obtain the rarest / scarcest card I need for the Houndoom master set by an absolute long shot. The unlimited Legend series cards are the bane of the species collectors existence, so much so that theres an entire thread dedicated to it. The mirrors are just another level of scarcity. 1st Edition mirror are hard to find. Unlimited is harder. Unlimited Mirror are just obnoxious. Due to the massive help of @BANKS I am finally able to get my hands o…

Just over a year of daily searching every japanese and english marketplace I could

[wisewailmer]

I believe I went through (bought & sold for the funds to upgrade) 7 base set 1st Ed Charizards before I got one in the condition I wanted for my collection. Started searching in 2019 with a PSA 7 at the time.

Maybe if I go another 6 years and 25 copies I can get a 10

[joponnes]

I’ve had a lot of multi year searches especially with my niche vintage japanese slime items but these five card hunts have been the most impactful for my collecting where all of them have been multi year searches. The two biggest slime items in my collection which naturally are topps chrome sparkle muk and cosmos foil fossil muk, but also the last three topps cards i was missing that made my topps collection complete, topps johto series 1 hologram totodile & furret and the mysterious ready for battle card