I did post on the discord, but forums are more my speed.
I am a father of 6 children. I have been a lifetime sports card collector. However, my love for sports cards didn’t pass on to most of my children, but my love for collecting did.
I was a card grader (no longer am), so I would talk to the TCG graders. Through them I have shared a love for TCG to some of my children.
2 of my children have been getting into Pokemon. We only play at the house. Local store times just don’t work in our schedule currently.
I find they love opening packs, and I do have access to some modern at MSRP, but with limits (family member owns a gaming store). However, I would like them to expand out.
I have sold some sports cards to replace with TCG. So I do have some 1999 English Base to expose them to that.
I am curious, since they collect more than play, what advice would you have? What other sets, besides ultra modern, should they look at?
My boy loves rarity above all else, he does love seeing powerful pokemon (ex). My daughter loves “cute” or “beautiful” art. She recently told me she likes Eevee, but prismatic may play a role.
Pocket has helped introduce new pokemon to all of us, so then we look for their physical cards. For instance my daughter really like Pachirisu.
Do you want them to expand out meaning looking into other games and mechanics? I hear lorcana, flesh and blood, maybe even onepiece are fun to play.
Do you want to teach them the ways of collecting with an investment mindset? Looking at the data similar to stocks where you look for the potentials of a cards value and helping them buy and keep that for collections.
Or is there another goal that you have in mind for them?
Do chores to make and save money, buy the singles they like, look at past cards and see what they can find.
Look at card art for soecific artists, maybe see how its changed over time or themes, start looking into other works of those artists.
That kinda thing?
If your boy loves rarity, I would take note of XY and Sun and Moon sets. They have accesible ex’s and GX’s while also having awesome full art cards. I would also reccomend choosing jpn wotc sets, as the holos are a lot cheaper than the normal ones and will still come off as the same rarity.
For your daughter, I would reccomend the radiant collection, which is a collection full of cute cards (and contains some eevees in the set!) I also think that finding bulk cute cards is also the best way, and my mom @Vertskangaskhan has her own collection of cute cards.
Even though your trying to go away from ultramodern, don’t forget to look at the Galarian Gallery cards from crown zenith, they’re not only cheap but they look awesome!
If you need anything else, let me know and Happy collecting!
On the topic of sealed there’s not much you can do, I suggest drawing their focus away from social media as it’s very easy to compare collections and other’s wealth on social media, just have them focus on the sets the genuinely enjoy and discourage basing their collections on value as no matter how much you collect your collection will never beat that one person in value
I suggest having you son look into rare niches, there are some rare cards out there that people don’t know a ton about not quiet trophy cards but they are rare, some examples of this are trainer a and b and 1999-2000 base/fossil. There are other languages that have rare cards if you want him to expand past english, e4 is a great place to reseach this kind of stuff
For your daughter I’d just let her collect what she likes, if she already doesn’t know about radiant collection you could point her towards that, there’s also some newer full arts that are cheap and very nice, on the subject of eevee there’s not a lot of lower end options but there are some cute modern promos that are cheap, they aren’t flashy but the artwork is very nice, there’s also some great vintage eevee’s/eeveelutions that aren’t to expensive like jungle eevee
I just meant other ways to expand them out of just looking at Ultra Modern, but still finding sets they may enjoy looking at.
It is easy to look at the oldest 1996-1999, or modern 2023-2025, but it are those middle areas where our ignorance abounds and not really sure which sets may be worth visiting.
Japanese Illustration Rares are also a cheap option for art. Pikachu RC29 is my reccomended favorite however, I have the card myself and it’s really cool!
Honestly I have more of a problem with social media. I watch a lot of Rattle videos and just like with sports my concern is fraud. So I would prefer to direct them to lower end, but fun, sets so they can grow in enjoyment. If investing happens, that can just be something that comes later after the love.
My son is discouraged that he can’t just go to the store and buy as he loves to open and see the new cards. He is a lot less focused. But I was the same as a child buying baseball packs. So if I can find older sealed that has less monetary reasons to be resealed or targets for scammers, that would help him spend his allowance on sealed.
Coming from sports I understand some of the hurdles, but I also understand how ignoyI am about the pokemon cards.
The problem is even if a raw pack isn’t resealed it’s almost certainly weighed or even scanned, the best I can tell you is some vintage japanese sets had guranteed holos so that might be a place to start, and in english there are not a lot of vintage sets that wouldn’t be targted or are to expensive for a kid to buy, maybe pop series as they don’t have holos so a lot of the prices and risks of a scam are slightly lower and the cards are still cool (this excludes pop 5 that one is crazy expensive and there’s a higher chance of getting scammed)
It sounds like you might be approaching your question backwards. It’s impossible to suggest sets without knowing what their interest are so I would start with narrowing that down first. The easiest way I can think of is by identifying the species they are interested in THEN identifying the sets that contain said species. This is how I find cards for my nieces and nephews.
For example, you mentioned your daughter likes Pachirisu which is a great place to start! You can see the card artwork, the sets they are in etc. From there you can look up the cost of the card as a single or the cost of the pack.
Keep in mind it is always more cost effective to purchase the cards you want as singles rather than buying packs and hoping to pull them. Hope this helps!
If they are more into collecting, I’m sure they would enjoy the experience of local card shows.