Wildebeast17's French Collection

[wildebeast17]

Welcome! I finally got some pictures of my cards so I thought I would start a collection thread.

A Brief History

I’m based in the US and first started collecting when I was in elementary school but stopped in middle school. About a decade later, I had a couple free weeks where I helped clean up my parents’ house and found my old collection and decided to get back into it. I shopped around on Craigslist for a little while, but one day I saw this amazing deal. There was this ad for a bunch of unknown Pokémon cards in boxes with the seller showing a picture of a couple of Charizards. I hopped in my car and drove an hour to meet them. I knew I was getting my money’s worth with just the Charizards alone so I made the purchase and didn’t even look at the rest of the cards. When I got home, I found that I had acquired hundreds of French first edition base set cards! I decided then and there that I wanted to get a full PSA 9 collection of French first edition base set.

Unfortunately, the first cards I sent out to grade threw a wrench into my plan. Most of the commons and uncommons came back a PSA 10! Being a perfectionist, I decided that I guess I had to get a full PSA 10 collection. Over the next few years, I slowly built up my collection until its current form in which I am missing just one PSA 10 card, a PSA 10 Leveinard (Chansey) of which only 3 currently exist in the world.

I am very slowly trying different ways to acquire a PSA 10 Leveinard (Chansey) or to grade one myself but the progress is slow. So I have started a collection of WOTC-era French sealed product to complement my graded card collection. I now have 15 out of 22 decks that I am looking for, however the remaining decks are extremely slow to come by with an average of only finding one or two a year.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy my collection!

French Base Set 1st Ed

French WOTC-Era Sealed

French Base Set 1st Ed

French WOTC-Era Theme Decks

Black and White images are placeholders until I acquire that deck.

Miscellaneous

[Quuador]

Amazing collection! An almost full PSA-10 set is no small feat, and it’s probably way harder to find all the pieces than English or Japanese. I hope you’ll be able to find the Chansey eventually to complete your collection.

Also love the sealed portion of the collection, including the booster box, blisters, and graded packs.

Greetz,
Quuador

[rainbowgym]

A little more background for your very nice French collection.
The French language cards were not sold outside of France for the first years.
It had to do with the rights to translate in the French language and the distributor who owned those rights.
So the French speaking part of Canada didn’t even get those. Years later (many years) this changed.
Also not all sets are translated into French.
Enjoy them, it looks great.

[mrbubbles]

Marvelous collection. As stated by @Quuador, first of all getting all of the cards is super hard, but doing so in a perfect grade is a really high achievement. Also shopping you get the remainder cards for your collection.

Congratulations on the collection this far. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

[TheMarillFoundation]

Incroyable!!

[mika]

Très belle collection, bravo !

[livindavido]

This is brilliant! Such a stunning collection. I have a fondness for French cards as I had some as a kid from vacations in France. I remember getting a Feunard (Ninetails) and giving it to my sister who gave it back to me over a decade later!

Good luck with the Chansey, hope you find it soon!

[bbobrob]

Awesome collection—and you’re so close! I especially like how you just stumbled into this way of collecting. Makes for a fun story and background!

A couple of questions:

1. Just wondering, do you know how to speak French?

2. What’s the story behind the Alolan Marowak slab?

Here’s to also hoping that Chansey comes up (or you’re able to grade one yourself)!

[wildebeast17]

Thanks!

1. No, I don’t speak any French which can make it difficult to connect with the few French collectors I can find.

2. Apart from the cards shown here and what I am selling on eBay, I have less than a dozen other Pokémon cards that I own. After realizing what a pain it is to sell random card lots, I decided to go for a very focused collection to make it easier on myself when I decide to eventually part with my collection. The extra cards I own include a few Entei (my favorite Pokémon). I also opened, graded, and sold a whole Japanese Sun & Moon booster box. For some reason I thought the Alolan Marowak from that box looked awesome so I’ve kept it in my collection

[wildebeast17]

Thanks for the extra info! It has been very difficult to try to learn more about the history of Pokémon in France. I watch some French Youtubers with automatically translated captions, but it can be confusing and doesn’t always make sense. I’m always eager to learn more!

[bbobrob]

Ah, gotcha. It just makes it all the more interesting that you’re collecting the French Base Set then! Hopefully, you’ve picked up some French along the way

[rainbowgym]

Your best option is to find a European midleman and keep a close look at cardmarket.com
Cardmarket is a little weird to navigate, but at soon as you get it you will find what you need.
I see several 1st ed French Chansey cards on Cardmarket. No PSA 10 but a 9 from each company could become a 10 someday.

French Base Chansey cards.

[wildebeast17]

Update: I finally got scans of my theme decks!

[packyman]

What an insane collection! So awesome to see this all in a thread. Nearly impossible to ever duplicate.

I have two things for you I am curious if you are aware exist. They are incredibly rare and few pictures exist online. I apologize in advance if they drive you to insanity as a completist.

Starter deck blister:

1999-2000 Made in USA short crimp packs:

[wildebeast17]

Thank you for sharing! I have seen the starter deck blister before in a French youtuber’s video, but unfortunately I’ve never seen one for sale. I think they also showed deck blisters of other decks as well! I’m not enough of a completionist to get every type though, I’d be happy just to get one of each deck.

I don’t know much about the short crimp packs, but they are very cool. It would be nice to add to the collection, but I would need to buy from a reputable seller because I wouldn’t trust my abilities to tell them apart from fake packs as they look so different from the long crimps.