What draws you to your collection? For vintage collectors what is it about vintage that makes you appreciate the cards?
Trophy collectors, what about the cards draws you to them?
Collectors of other eras/types what makes those cards that you collect the ones you chose?
For my vintage binders it is the unique and almost overwhelming feeling of nostalgia I get when looking at and organizing the cards from my childhood. Nothing feels quite like it.
For my modern binder it’s just art appreciation. It seems like I catch new details in a sowsow or Shibuzoh. artwork each time i browse those pages.
The nostalgia of the art on the decks but it also appeals to my collector nature overall. I have mini completion dopamine releases with every deck that is sealed. It appeals to my hoarding of history by having early decks and variants that are relatively undocumented. But it mostly appeals to my uniqueness and interest in not having the same binder collections as everyone else since its not a collection that many will ever have in the way I have it.
The ritual of opening boosters and pull (or not pull) the cards that I want defines my collection. It adds another dimension to the cards under my ownership.
I lost alot of my stuff from my childhood. And growing up we didnt have money for a lot of stuff so we always heard about things like toys r us or gamestop but as someone growing up like i did it they were “magical places the cool kids went to”. After losing the collection i had as a child (some of you know that story) i finally got to start over once i settled down and got married. Now i love flipping through my binder and seeing all those stamps. As for the prerelease stuff its about seeing that set stamp on the cards lined up. Events were out of the question as a kid so this is like the ultimate 
Also my brain like the shiny
For me it’s all about the art. I do not collect cards I do not like simply to complete a set. I have a wide variety of things I collect so I always feel like I have more things left to chase.
Nostalgia, flipping through binders, specific artists, observing the evolution of artists over time, the thrill and chase of finding something new, mail days!
Nostalgia is key, the art and knowing the characters that I grew up with. The smell of the cards fresh from a pack and being able to get things I never had before. I am stubborn though, I’m stuck in my ways.
I think I would be similar to a lot of vintage collectors in that I’m drawn to them because it’s what I grew up with. On top of that, I love the artworks and card designs.
Right there with you. We were evicted and I had to put all my cards in storage. I later found out that my parents didn’t pay the bill and all my cards were gone. I didn’t touch Pokémon for most of my high school and college years. Picked up a pack of Legendary Treasures from target and got instantly hooked again.
God this image goes hard. I could never.
For me it is the History and the Story behind the cards. I realised that my interest to collect Japanese promos was getting to know more about the actual release of the cards. I have read countless old Japanese blog posts on how some of the competition promo cards were obtained by them, the planning, the games they had to play etc. and I have always found them fascinating.
Also, even for non competition promos, there are always stories on why certain promos were chosen or why a certain promos were released the way they were. I really enjoy learning more about those.
Cheers!
What a wholesome and insightful thread so far.
MOAR.
All your non-TCG Gyarados stuff makes me jealous 
Of course there is nostalgia, but one of my main motivation in my Pokémon collection is the difficulty. I love when it is extremely hard to find something (even if not expensive) 
i love the Childhood nostalgia. I have a ungodly amount of birthday piakchu. used to just buy every one i saw online. I’ve been working on obtaining every version released in PSA 10 CGC 10 or highest grade at BGS. Just seeing the card as a child made my brain go crazy. I also collect Black Star WOTC promos as it was my fav set as a kid and unnumbered Japanese promos, and Japanese VS set in PSA 10. Its just hard wired into my brain. Id rather have Trophy Kangkashan than a 1st ed Base Set Charizard. Dont care charizard at all.
For me it’s mainly the childhood memories & nostalgia from my enjoyment of Pokemon as a child (games, TV, cards). However, I find it goes beyond this as well. It’s also like a time warp to another time, before the social media/technological age we live in now. So this brings me enjoyment when looking at my cards and thinking back to those times. I have a lot of great memories of playing TCGs in the early 2000s including Pokemon, MTG, Yu-Gi-Oh and it was just so different then today.
Anyway, it felt totally natural to get back into things as an adult 20+ years later. I mainly just collect now, but I wouldn’t mind trying to get back into deck building at some point as well. I’m also really happy with the state of Pokemon, it’s nice to see so many people come back and also new people getting into it as time goes on.
