I’m trying to find when this Ultra Pro Pokemon sleeve was first released but I can’t find any information on it. If anyone has a pack in it’s original packaging that could help us date. Any leads would be a great help. Right now my best guess sets the release date somewhere between mid 2008 - late 2009.
2 bits of information that have helped me get to those dates are this poster
And this website showing the release of a binder collection of the same artwork.
Not sure how much more info youre looking for, 2008 seems like a pretty good guess
I’m trying to get the month of release ideally. I’m 90% set on it being 2008 but things can get delayed.
Edit: I’m also not sure if it ever made it to release as I can’t find any online for sale or in people’s collection.
Looks like it would be a product on the shelves at walmart
U own the sealed sleeves?
No but I’m hoping I can find someone who does.
I can say for certain that these made it to production- I own some!
For a long time, both @doomrai and I considered these “unfindable sleeves” because they were simply nowhere to be found. She and I ended up splitting a combined lot of them from France, used so no original packaging unfortunately.
I’ve only been able to narrow down the release to somewhere between 2008-2009 for my own records, so I’m afraid I’m not much help in that front though.
That’s good to hear! I am curious as to why they are so hard to find, do you have any theories?
On a side note do you collect any sleeves in particular?
Aren’t most sleeves from that long ago hard to find? Sleeves don’t seem like they’d be top of the list of things to preserve, especially since they’re usually used to preserve other things.
You’d be surprised! I’ve been able to find almost every other sleeve for sale fairly easily. There are a few big ebay sellers and websites that have almost all sleeves.
My personal theory is that it was a short release, possibly a small run of product in only select areas. Also around this time, Pokemon’s popularity had started to dip, possibly lending itself to fewer units getting sold. This is all theorizing though, of course.
Yes, I do! I collect sleeves with Piplup and/or Dawn on them primarily. I also collect sleeves with Lillie (though more casually), as well as ones I just like the artwork of. I really love doing binder spreads combining both sleeves and cards, and there’s a lot of potential for display for them too.
