You wished to challenge me. Very well, but I shall not lose.

Collecting
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Hello all,

Very exciting update, first of all - I have decided to merge my two threads ‘the master cameo collection’ and the ‘complete Erika collection’ under one banner! Thank you to the newest mod @quuador, who kindly did this for me.

Right to business!

I have had my very first cards graded and being a UK resident I tried AceGrading’s colour match.

So it has been a little bit mixed. Firstly, I really really like the Gloom and Oddish, I think the labels are by far my favourite and give a unique but smart look to them.

Now, AceGrading haven’t talked a huge amount about how they choose the colours for the colour match, but it appears in many instances they use the colours of the card picture and not the card itself.

The surprising and disapointing thing for me here, is that the Vileplume doesn’t have any green in the picture at all. And yet, has been given a green and pink label. Whilst the card text is green, if that was the case then you would expect the gloom to be green/orange too.

Personally my preference would be for them all to be black from their body + the colour of the petals (green/orange/pink). Or if they were going to use the colour of the text, have all three of them be primarily green. Instead I have 2 matching cards and one odd one out. If I was being fussy, I’d like all 3 to be black first and then the secondary colour but I am not that petty!

I was super excited to display these and have hopes that the customer support will listen to my pleas. Whilst extra-ordinarily petty, when the whole process and collection revolves around being a ‘collection’ - I feel that it’s worth asking about.

In the meantime, I need to find an Oddish that isn’t going to get a 7…

3 Likes
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@pentagon, your post has helped me a good bit especially on some of the newer sets. Though I’m somewhat working on the same type of thing for Japanese copies, I was able to get a bunch of new things to search for from here so thanks!

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So big announcement from me, as forecast a few changes. I am going for EVERY cameo, in Japanese (when preferable) with Ace Grading 10… with the Ace Label where possible.

I have a lot of exciting results to show y’all, but for now - I am going to go with just this one. The only and likely only ever 10 grade for this card among the small UK population who use Ace. But one I’m super happy with, a worthy addition to the cameos.

I am a little behind with keeping on track. And it’s complicated somewhat of how ACE labels are not released in set order. So, I’ve been super impressed with the amount and variety of ace labels that are being printed. So for example an ACE label is a custom picture to match the card, some look really cool - others less good. So for example…

Shout out to @chrisbalestra who sold me this lovely copy before I regraded her. (CGC 9.5 made the cross)

But in addition to all the modern chase stuff, they’ve gone back and done nearly all the dream league cameos (MY BELOVED VILEPLUMES haven’t got the treatment yet, but rest assured there’s a CGC 9.5 Vileplume waiting for the moment they do!) but they’ve even done PokeKyun and Shiny Collection Ace Labels, so I’ll be grading the Shiny Collection Piplup etc. The way they’re going, I really think I’ll at some point have 75% of the collection as Ace Labels they’re pumping the ace labels out so quickly.

@ottergang Welcome to the most supported collection since Pikachu and Eevee collections XD What are your rules, there are a couple of us now- I’m really pleased to hear I gave you a bit of a headstart, I’m sure you’ll spot some that I haven’t.

I am not completely up to date, but my latest set list is:

Bronzor - Dark Phantasma
Eevee - Pokemon Go
Pikachu - Pokemon Go
Bergmite - Space Juggler
Togepi - Space Juggler
Machamp - Time Gazer
Yanma - Time Gazer
Magnemite - Time Gazer
Scyther - Battle Region
Hipopotas - Battle Region
Roserade - Battle Region
Chandelure - Battle Region
Wydeer - Battle Region
Kleavor - Battle Region
Hoothoot - Battle Region
Mightyeena - Battle Region
Starmie - Battle Region
Garchomp - Battle Region

Staravia - Star Birth
Bidoof - Star Birth

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Congrats! I had no doubt it would regrade as a 10 (as I’m sure even some of the 8.5s, 9s, and ofc 9.5s would/will do). CGC is mongaloid-level stingy at not giving 10s and all the 9’s and 9.5’s they gave me are prob easy crossovers like that one. 800ish pack fresh cards, 4 10’s from CGC. Biggest waste of money ever but at least I was only paying 7.5 + cross grades at the time.

Digging the label matching the card. Def a cool idea.

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I think I’ve done quite a bit of the heavy lifting as far as Japanese goes.

I’m going for all the cameos as well, but in addition to that anything relating to a trainer or affiliation with a team (‘Dark’ for Team Rocket, Team Magma/Aqua, Team Galactic, Team Plasma, etc.) and just like the early Gym sets Platinum has some great Gym Leader, Elite Four, and Frontier Brain cards in the same style.

There are also quite a few amazing Movie half deck/movie promos for characters from the anime you may enjoy. I’ll link my spreadsheet below and maybe give you some new ideas. If you know of any I missed don’t hesitate to let me know!

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11LKv6vhyHY9RWXDMZc4KKfxIlTQ1AXyLlGZq6nZ4IBE/edit

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28 August 2022
12:15

Hello all,

Big post from me, but firstly I am not dead, just poor! But it’s nice to be posting again.

Firstly, I realise that I have been living under a rock for the last however many years and hadn’t discovered one note, which has been amazing for upgrading how I track my Pokemon cards…

Despite my gushing about how amazing one note is, I’m still not entirely up to date, specifically dream league, I need to tally up where exactly I’m at.

Anyway, I, my wallet and my imaginary accountant have been concentrating on Vmax Climax since I last checked in.

The first UK print run of Vmax Climax was pretty horrendous, CR’s graded well - however, the vast majority of CSR’s were hit by this poor right side edge cut which consigned them to hard 9s.

For this reason, I have had to buy a lot of CGC 9.5’s to attempt the cross.

On spreadsheet, yellow is 9.5 CGC awaiting crossing. Green is Ace 10.

So whilst I am making moderate progress on Vmax Climax, I am at 28/39 of the CSR’s (assuming all make the cross.) In my experience, 10 or so 9.5 CGC’s have crossed successfully, so I am hopeful for a high cross return…

However, for reference, of the CSR’s from Vmax Climax, 25 have been graded 10’s by Ace. This is from a pool of approximately 550 submissions.

But obviously… I will be 46th and I will be successful!!! … :(

So my hope/educated belief is that a lot of these were from the UK print run 1 which was awful. Looking at CGC results, I believe that our yank cousins had a much better print run as CGC are hardly known for being soft and I’ve seen a lot of CGC 10s for CSRS. Though I don’t tend to buy them, due to the price difference from 9.5s.

So, the collector in me is pretty happy with this little set, as that is the currently only Ace 10 of the V. However, it currently has an Ace label (the art matching the picture on the vmax) and then a standard label / colour match label. So I need to send them off to Oxford to get regraded.

However, sneak peak, that’s the special art label for the Dream League Mimikyu how cute is that!!!

Anyway, I digress…

Is where we’re currently at in displaying. I was looking at all sorts of fancy wooden display cases that were 100s of pounds to display like 6 cards. THEN, I realised, fake lego!!! A quick trip to the home bargains store later, a 1000 fake lego pieces were in my hands and I could build shelf display wracks on the cheap. Was like 10 pounds for a rack to display 12. Though, I’ve not decided if I’m going to spray paint the lego black or whatever, I don’t hate how it looks now though.

Anyway, monologue update over. I look forward to updating you with how the cross grades to Oxford go.

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I’ve been thinking if i want to use my current holders for slabs or buy better ones but lego definitely doesn’t sound like a bad idea, i have to think about it seriously!

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Hi guys,

Almost completed vmax climax… only taken a few years.

Will get a nice picture update.

However, I am excited to show off:

Aside from being a really cool miniset, I’m excited to suggest that the little girl in the 2015 card is the same girl, as she has the same distinct fringe. Also, it was particularly tricky to find a random common from 9 years ago, than it was to get a modern rare.

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Wow, I think something like this would only be possible if you were collecting the Ralts line. Super interesting observation and I believe your theory. Thanks for sharing your updates after a while.

Cheers!

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oh you must have dozed off then as i burned through your gym with my lvl 42 flamethrower charizard lol sorry had too :stuck_out_tongue: