Heavy breathing… GRAIL ACQUIRED 
This was the last WotC promo I needed and also the most expensive one I still had left to complete. Back in late 2019, I picked up the yellow cheeks E3 Pikachu and thought that paying $150 for the red cheeks was too much, figuring I would wait for another one to pop up. They were all listed in the US and I did not realize how rare the card actually was. Then 2020 happened and I slowly lost hope that I would finish the promos. I also wasnt really comfortable with shipping such a valuable card from overseas so I kept waiting…
At some point, a raw copy popped up in the EU. I was looking at the E3 stamp on different cards and realized the placement and even the font were not consistent across all of them. I was so confused that I created the topic Advice on E3 Pikachu Red Cheeks stamp differences. I also just realized that today is exactly two years since I created that topic!
Now the funny part, how I actually got this card:
About six months ago, I saw this very copy listed on cardmarket from a seller in Belgium. I messaged him to see if he was open for a trade because it was simply too expensive for me to buy. He agreed but we couldnt find a way to make the logistics work so it didnt happen. He then tried selling the card on ebay and I thought okay, I will have to keep waiting for another one to pop up.
Last week, I checked cardmarket again and it was still there. We made a deal and I bought a flight ticket to Brussels for the weekend. All I had was a “yes” from the seller… and we met and the trade happened!
Since I hadnt been to Brussels before, I thought why not also connect it with a nice trip to see some new places. I visited the Atomium, the European Parliament area, the Museum of Chocolate, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts and really enjoyed strolling around the city. While I was there, I also found a random TCG shop close to the main square and got some cards from there as well for my wotc holos binder.
