Phantasmal Flames pre-orders finally hit Pokemon Center, new mega evolutions including DLC for the upcoming Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and more product leaks to come. It's been a busy two weeks (sorry for missing last week!) but we're back and at it again! Let's rip into this one!

Let's take a break from all the value and investment talk and highlight a part of my personal collection!

I got back into collecting Pokemon cards mid-2023, with the release of 151 and the news that a few of my friends had gotten back into it. I eventually got into grading cards when I started buying singles online through Facebook Marketplace.

These aren't the most expensive cards, and are definitely not the most popular Pokemon, but they are three of my most prized possessions. I won't post any information about market value because I want you to simply enjoy these three cards without any distractions.

Let's jump in…

This card started it all for me. Early on, I had very little knowledge of PSA grading and the process itself. I had a limited budget, so I stuck to buying raw singles. But I purchased my first PSA 10 at a card shop in the Columbus Flea Market and became hooked on the idea of collecting graded cards.

As I started looking at graded cards to buy, I began warming to the idea of having a graded Sylveon card. Sylveon is the newest Eevee evolution and was introduced in Pokemon X and Y—the two games that brought me back to playing Pokemon video games again. Catching an Eevee with the right ability and knowing a Fairy-type move, while also playing with the Eevee to get max Friendship, was a sort of mini-grind that made obtaining a Sylveon even sweeter.

But the VMAX was a little too expensive for me at the time. So I settled for the $100 Sylveon V alternate art instead, telling myself I'd go back for the VMAX once I flipped a few cards.

Months went by, and the VMAX only went up in price. The FOMO was real. I was panicking, wondering if I'd missed the boat on it. So I messaged the guy who sold me the Sylveon V and said I'd buy the VMAX. We agreed on a price and BAM—the VMAX was finally mine.

The texturing, the scene itself, the colors, the artwork, even all the Pokemon surrounding the gigantic Sylveon—this is what makes this card perfect in my eyes. It's a keeper and will never leave the collection!

The one that got away. Multiple times. Pretty sure I said "I can't, it's too expensive" at least 100 times until I finally pulled the trigger.

The Giratina GG69 from the Crown Zenith subset Galarian Gallery is, no joke, my second all-time favorite card (all-time favorite being this one). Something about Origin form Giratina swimming in a river of anti-matter in its anti-matter world is already majestic, but using the shimmering gold holofoil as the accentuating color adds a regality that's well-deserved for this terrifying Legendary Pokemon.

It took me a long time before I decided to buy this card. I knew it was undervalued then, and I still think it's undervalued now, but I always said "It'll be there for that price" and would focus on buying other things first.

I finally pulled the trigger when I decided to trade it, almost straight up, for an extra Prismatic Evolutions Pokemon Center ETB I had stored away. It's generally ill-advised to trade away your sealed product for single cards, but I had to do it. I could not let this get away from me again before it became unattainable.

Plus, how sick does it look with that metallic gold Grade Guard?!

This one is really special.

Ever since this card was revealed as part of the Twilight Masquerade set, I knew I needed to have it. The pose, the colors, the perfectly painted Terastalization of Greninja, the giant water shuriken at the ready—this card is spectacular. But man, being the first true chase card of the Scarlet and Violet era of the Pokemon TCG meant it was being marked up so high, both the raw single and the PSA 10 copy.

But that's not what makes THIS copy I own special. No, it's the memory tied to it that makes this card exponentially more valuable.

I finally bought my Greninja EX PSA 10 from a popular Pokemon TCG vendor at a Collect-a-Con in Edison, NJ. I had been following the Bulbastore on YouTube since my return to Pokemon card collecting. I did a little negotiation, traded in some of my sealed product (again, I would advise against doing that), and BANG—Greninja EX. I'm still waiting for that YouTube video to drop (can't wait to watch me say "Mew" a bunch of times to confuse the vendor when I meant "Meowth").

But wait, that's not even the thing that makes this Greninja EX card so special…

Donald and I attended our first ever card show together. It was quite the experience (super humid—I swear the AC died within the first two hours we were there…), with tons of vendors everywhere, deals being negotiated left and right, and tons of cards out for sale. We searched high and low for his Greninja (not many raw copies were available…) and finally negotiated a raw copy for a reasonable price.

But man, going to a show and living the negotiating process, listening to the OG Pokemon theme song sung by the man himself, and being surrounded by collectors like us was a truly unique and fun experience.

Hope you enjoyed my brief walk down memory lane! There's nothing like collecting memories while collecting cards, and it's what makes this hobby so rewarding.

Ancient Mew’s Secret Code 🔮
The Ancient Mew promo given out at theaters for Pokémon: The Movie 2000 had unreadable runic text. Fans quickly created ciphers to decode it, discovering it simply said “New Species Pokémon: Mew.” It became a playground legend.

Catch deals. Pull grails.