That Noctowl art is slept on! Super cool card. I personally think Noctowl is slept on in general if you’re into cultural tie-ins; Japanese culture has always revered owls so seeing them both together is pretty neat. Would be a really good one to do a species collection for IMO!
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Agree that that Noctowl art is pretty cool. Haven’t seen it before!
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Some of my new Houndoom. Really love the design of the EX!
And then there are also ~100 Houndour that came in today. Got them for the E4 Signature Exchange.
Now I’ll be on the hunt for a few more unique Houndour to sign and send away 
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NICE pickup! Nice shout out.
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This is my favorite card, my “signature card”, and a card I’ve wanted in a premium condition quality for some time.
This card is a difficult grade and many PSA 10s out there have a conspicuous flaw that breaks the illusion of prestige for me, especially when it comes to even borders. I have bought and owned several PSA 10s and have always been disappointed in them, so I have never had a slab of my signature card for very long. Becoming disillusioned with how hard it was to get a PSA 10 of this card, while also having so many of those 10s with noticeable faults, I figured only a “Black Label” card from BGS would be enough to satisfy my brain bugs.
Almost exactly one year ago, I tried to rouse up some interest in getting this card graded through BGS and made this topic. I didn’t expect results from this thread, but thought it might be a fun way to document my attempts at pursuing a high quality grade for my favorite card. But I never really got it off the ground and formally began my BGS campaign because it was so hard to find candidates.
I discussed my goal to grade a black label 10 with many friends and peers and the feedback was unanimous: this may never happen. BGS has never graded a 10 at all, let alone a black label. It would take processing hundreds of cards to potentially get back the mythical grade I’m looking for. Most people said this card could simply not be obtained in this condition. They told me to set my expectations that no such card may even exist.
I set the goal of grading 12 cards a year, aiming for one a month, with no timeline for success. Maybe I would never achieve it, but certainly I was going to be the only one trying.
Enter @cig, our resident madman.
When I asked him if he had ever graded this card and what his results were like, he had this to say:
This was demoralizing. At my ambition of 12 cards a year, it would take me 66 years to submit that many cards. I plan on being dead in 66 years. It became clear to me that I would never be grading this card in the prized condition I wanted. But CIG had gotten close.
Unfortunately for me, the card was already gone. He didn’t have the card anymore to even show me, let alone sell me. But possessed by some old school bizarro energy of collector’s charity, he set out to get it back. He asked me a simple riddle and gave me a 20% discount off my offer price. I don’t even think I got it right.
I do not have this card in a Perfect 10 like I set out to achieve a year ago. I accept that it’s unlikely this card will ever see such a certification. If it ever happens, I hope I can buy that card. But until then, I am happy to settle for the highest grade this card has yet to receive.
I am at peace.
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Congrats! I definitely remember your thread, it was a very ambitious goal to try and achieve.
Honestly, that might be as close as you can get, especially on a holo normal/white WOTC era Pokemon card. They are simply tough graders (Chansey, Wigglytuff, Lugia, etc), so to get a 10 surface grade is near impossible most of the time from what I’ve seen. The promo holo Eevee is also ridiculous, the last PSA 10 that I saw sold for a fortune.
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I have been told by someone who has worked in the production of similar pack-ins that the biggest thing working against this card is the additional machining to both individually wrap the card and then insert into the Game Boy game boxes it came in.
This additional machining creates more touch points, more opportunities for damage, and means most cards coming new out of the box will have suffered ever so slightly from the processing, and then on top of that will have to have survived storage for 20 years and people tend to be overconfident in the kind of protection the cellophane provides. I know I’m guilty of throwing cards wrapped like this in drawers where “they’ll be okay.”
On top of the fact it’s a colorless card and a promo with lax quality control it’s just not something I may ever find in that platinum condition.
But hey, maybe it’s out there somewhere. Maybe someday. If it ever happens, I will commit any atrocity to obtain it.
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Congratulations! It’s good to be at peace. Maybe now that perfect card can find it’s way too you. In the meantime Enjoy @stagecoach !
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Much like true love, perhaps cards like that find people when they aren’t looking.
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All good points! So many things can play into certain vintage cards in regard to condition for sure, so I can definitely respect the premiums they carry at times when you factor in all the elements. It’s also why I love having certain high grade examples of my favourite older cards.
The CGC slab offers great clarity, and the label with the additional Gold colour looks just great with Meowth!
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My first thought when I saw the post was, “I wonder if @stagecoach is satisfied with the centering…” 
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Never had any strong feelings about centering, myself.
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So the meds are working I see!
+ 
= 
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This was the first post I ever saw upon joining this forum, because I clicked on the link in your signature on the old sight when you were helping me out with identifying that insert. Congrats on the card, it’s beautiful!
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It looks better in the scan.
Not sure why it looks weird in the photo, I think sometimes the image processing on my phone does… something.
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It looks a little off left-right to me, but that could easily be a scan/picture problem. Beautiful card! Congratulations! 
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It is what it is. Nothing in this world is perfect, and it is only the most flawed among us who demand such perfection. We must find the beauty in the universe as it is, not the way we wish it was.
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Haters said it could never happen
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