How I Fell Down The Pokemon Card Rabbit Hole

A couple weeks back, a buddy of mine invited me to a card show for the first time. To be very honest, I was completely overwhelmed and ended up not getting anything at all that day. But I did see a whole lot of stuff I found to be very cool considering I am a huge fan of Pokémon, but mostly, and I’d go even further and say solely, the games ever since I was a kid.

I still remember to this day the moment my mom took me to Toys R Us and got me my first copy of Pokémon Fire Red for the Gameboy Advance. Funny enough though, I don’t really remember getting into Pokémon cards for some odd reason. To be honest, I kind of wish I was into it when I was younger because man oh man there is an insane amount of money to be made out there considering the market for some of these cards, especially the ones from when I was a kid.

At that first event I came away with nothing other than just an interest in maybe getting into collecting these cards, mainly from the FOMO effect I had. Everybody in the group I was with ended up with cards, and I left with none. That was mostly due to me feeling overwhelmed from the room full of people and honestly just not knowing anything at all going into it for the first time.

That day I went home and started looking through my drawers, and I came across the one Pokémon card I knew I had. My dad randomly got into collecting things at one point because one of his buddies was trying to get him into yet another hobby, but that’s a story for another day.

Apparently my dad and his buddy would go to McDonalds every day during their lunch break during the 25th anniversary of Pokémon because every Happy Meal came with a special anniversary Pokémon card or pack. My pops actually gave me one of them and I thought nothing of it other than “oh wow my dad knows I like Pokémon so he gave me a Pikachu card.” But little did I know it was actually a pretty decent card that’s going for about $20 right now. It even has the 25th anniversary logo on the bottom right, so maybe just maybe it’ll skyrocket one day. At least that’s the hope right?

Regardless, I had my first card in my collection.

After that I started looking into it a bit more and before I knew it Pokémon cards were all over my algorithm.

Over the past couple weeks my buddy has slowly been gathering up some cards and now has a solid collection. This past Saturday we went to yet another event and I finally decided to pull the trigger and get myself some because why not?

We actually knew somebody at the event that was selling from his own collection, so we went straight to him. The logic was simple, let’s go to the guy that’ll most likely not rip us off.

I ended up getting two cards from him. One was a sweet Mega Charizard card that looked absolutely gorgeous and I just had to have it. Then I went ahead and grabbed a Suicune card I had yet to see before. He cut us a deal on the two and just like that I had three cards including the Pikachu I already had. I was ecstatic.

I truly thought I was done after that.

But then I stumbled upon another table selling some really cool cards I had yet to see. I really wanted to get the Kanto starters, Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, and they looked so damn cool.

So of course I had to ask what the price was.

According to the seller he didn’t want to just sell the three I wanted but rather the whole set of nine, which included the Kanto starters along with the Sinnoh and Alola starters. Out of curiosity I asked him how much the whole set would be and he told me $145.

I obviously turned him down because I wasn’t about to drop $145 just like that.

Then he offered to sell me the pack for $45, which would give me a 33 percent chance at getting the exact cards I wanted. I denied it at first simply because at that point I thought I was done for the day. I was already happy with what I grabbed earlier.

But then I spun the block and came across the same table again.

He mentioned the booster pack one more time and I decided to do it because again… why not?

I handed over the $45 and got to open that bad boy right there on the spot.

This was also my first time ever ripping open any packs. I’ve seen a variety of ways people open them, so I asked the seller to show me his way of opening the packs without damaging the cards themselves.

He showed me how he does it and I got to opening the pack.

And man oh man on my first rip I got the cards I wanted.

I ended up scoring big and pulling my Kanto starter set.

I was beyond happy and right then and there I knew I was done for the day because I did not want to push my luck any further.

So there it is. I came away with five cards I was extremely happy with and now I’ve got a total of six cards in my collection. Slowly but surely I’m sure the collection will grow and this will most definitely become one of my favorite hobbies going forward since I already have a huge love for Pokémon.

Let’s see how far I can take this and I’ll be sure to give updates on my journey and collection over time.

Hopefully by next time my portfolio has doubled in worth.