It was Christmas morning 1999. The presents had been opened and things were winding down. But wait. I’m made aware of something still in the depths of my stocking. To my delight, it is a fresh pack of base set! Obviously this is great news but my pulls this year hadn’t been good so my hopes weren’t too high. This one was a little different. My luck had finally changed. Charizard secured.
It turns out there was a twist. A few days prior, my dad had stopped by the local hobby shop on his way home from work to grab a 2 or 3 packs for me. I guess he wanted the experience of ripping a pack for himself so he opened one of them in the parking lot. Apparently that was the pack that had the Charizard in it. Instead of just brining it back opened, managed to do a halfway decent job of resealing it (at least well enough that a kid on Christmas morning wouldn’t notice). I think that he ended up spilling the beans about a year later and there is part of me that wished he would take that to his grave, but at the same time, I wouldn’t have this great story.
With Charizard being the classic chase card, I’m sure most of us have some sort of memorable story attached to acquiring (pulling, trading, buying etc) Charizard Card. Doesn’t have to be base set as I’m sure some people on the forum weren’t even born when base set was around. Lets hear em!
I only ever had one Charizard growing up, a non-holo Expedition 39/165. I’m surprised I traded it away, I usually didn’t do that if it was my only one. But, I must’ve not had a Typhlosion card at the time cause I traded it away for the Japanese Neo File Typhlosion. Thought it was a good deal for me cause mine was holo, and I preferred Typhlosion! No regrets, as that Typhlosion card sits in the Typhlosion section of one of my binders now.
I can’t remember where I got every single Charizard, but I do remember pulling a Blaine’s Charizard in my friend’s bedroom. Most of the others were on the playground and it was my goal to trade for as many Charizards as possible. You can see in my post which ones I had in my binder originally, which I will link here!
I pulled a charizard from base set 2 when I was younger, but believe I eventually traded it for a dark magician girl later on, or something of similar style like injection fairy lily. Probably would do it again today lol. Priorities for collecting back then sure were different.
I actually never had any Charizard card until I became an adult and got back into the hobby. Luckily for me, as a kid I don’t ever really remember wanting a Charizard card that badly. If I remember correctly my first Charizard was a shadowless one I bought for my base set binder!
I think a lot of us were just caught up in hype when it comes to that big lizard. I know that I have cards cared more for more growing up. The green backgrounds of raichu and hitmonchan mesmerized my 9 year old brain.
Exactly! I distinctly remember really liking cards that were not the big hitters. My sister got an Electabuzz that I wanted so badly, and to this day I still really like that Pokemon and wish it had gotten more traction. Interestingly I don’t think I ever got a base set holo because I spent way more time opening Jungle/Fossil/Rocket/Gym as a kid; getting a holo Flareon was a massive highlight for me! Still love the colors on that card
I used to play the TCG a lot with my dad (no I was not very good). My favorite deck was always a fire deck featuring Charmander and Charmeleon, but I never pulled a Charizard. This became something I complained about pretty frequently. The one time my parents ever bought card singles for me, they went online and bought two Charizards so I could play them as part of my deck.
One of the cards was a standard base set Zard, and the other was this Dark Charizard (my dad let me evolve regular Charmeleon into Dark Charizard when we played). On my dad’s 50th birthday, I gave the base set Zard back to him as a gift. He kept it in his wallet for many years. I still have the Dark Charizard.
My first Charizard was the one from DP Stormfront. I used to keep my cards in a bundle with a rubber band anmd I forgot to take it out of my pocket before my mum put my pants in the wash! Sadly all my holo/cool fire types fell apart and stuck together. I still think about it lol
Cant tell a lie, never pulled one. My eldest son (then aged 10) bought his first 1st edition for $70 way back when (and only after I pushed him into it), but the youngest has a total of 5 scattered across his WOTC Master sets. Ones locked away, where as the other son is a binder boy just like his old man’
