In October 1999 Pokémon Red and Blue were released in Europe. The same year at Christmas I got my copy of Pokémon Blue. During the same time, the Base Set was released in Europe. Back then I was a 7 year old and although I did not had the game yet, I was already deeply caught in Pokémania. As my dad had a lot of business with Japan at the time he brought me my first pack of Pokémon cards from Japan and I got it as well at the end of 1999.
The pull was not really spectacular (not even a holo) but I still have the rare of this pack to this very day.
Base set 25 years ago, I was around 10. I loved Pokémon, but I was really disappointed with the cards. I found the art quite bad, and the Cosmo Holo effect seemed so random. I mean… come on. Charmander and Bulbasaur have much better artwork than Blastoise, Venusaur, or Hitmonchan, who are just randomly placed in these holo spaces.
Then, I opened Brilliant Stars and really liked it.
first pack was base set unlimited. I didnt know too much about pokemon at the time but I remember being aware of both charizard and blastoise
I ended up pulling magneton which was traded somehow for a raichu and then again for a mewtwo. I remember being pressured to trade for the mewtwo because I was really happy with Raichu and didnt want to part with him
I dont know/dont remember what ended up happening to my childhood pokemon cards. My mom probably threw them away ~2 or so years later. I ended up getting a raichu again and hiding it away. It’s the only card that remained until adulthood
One kid on the block had a blastoise but his mom would trade on his behalf and wouldnt allow him to trade it away
Pretty sure base set but it could have been any of the early wotc sets. I dont really remember opening anything until the DPP era, of which I opened most of the tins. I didnt really know what a set was or understand the set release structure back then.
Either Fossil or Jungle unlimited, I remember pulling a Jolteon and Moltres. I think the Moltres was holo. I quickly switched to Topps because what the hell are trainer cards they didn’t have Pokemon on them
I was 9 years old when my mom took me to Target and I asked her to buy me a pack of this cool looking new card game. I was a huge sports collector at the time, but I was aware of Pokemon because of the WB show and the video games. I remember it was a Venusaur pack art and my rare in the pack was a Super Energy Removal lol
I was a kid in a professional show. 99 performances over the Summer so we all practically lived together for those three months. Battling with cards we couldnt read, and making up rules we didn’t know. The rehearsal director was from JP, and brought pokemon cards for all of the kids. She gave me a Team Rocket and a Gym Challenge pack. My first holo pull was dark hypno, and my second was Erika’s Venusaur. She also gave us each a City Gym deck, and I still have those cards in my main binder. It gave me strong nostalgia for the early JP era and. Japanese cards just look right to me.
I’m an old person at this point so it was base set. Don’t remember exactly what I got besides a Growlithe and Ponyta and they were my favorites for such a long time. I remember going to Aahs! and getting jungle and fossil (1st edition baby!) much more clearly.
And the one that will always stick out to me was my dad buying me the Neo file 1, from a little Japanese cart in the mall, and I was shocked because it cost $100!!! That was so much money!!! Now I laugh thinking about how much I spend on single cards
