u/Togetic52

Surprisingly not from the same illustrator, but dope theme art for both cards!

🔥

Props to the artist 🎨

🥳

TLDR: (Okay it’s still kinda long lol). As a supplemental hobby for being sober (pushing 4 months now I think) I started collecting Pokémon cards back in March. As kids, my brother and I were REALLY into the franchise, from cards to movies to the games, vhs tapes of episodes, you name it. We literally had EVERYTHING. From special promo cards (we literally saw all 3 movies in theaters) to oddball rares, if I could estimate, probably between the both of us, maybe like 500 cards in bulk?? Just sitting in a plastic tub bin in the 90s-early 2000s era. But like many of us, a good chunk of it was all lost to the cosmos lol. Fast forward, here I am 31 years old and through various circumstances, I happen to be living with my mother again (oddly in a totally different state from where we grew up.) Since I’m collecting again, I asked her if she had any of our old cards still, and she somehow, through her gypsy-like lifestyle manage to hold on to our old binder which stored some of our old collection and a few of our gem cards in her safe as she traveled state to state through the years. (God bless her heart for doing so, I couldn’t believe she even held on to it out of all things.)

The pictures you see here are everything I manage to scrape from that binder and the special cards she kept aside. It’s probably about less than 9% of our childhood collection, but im still grateful for every card kept! I re-sleeved, toploaded the special ones, and put them all in new binders. Nothing really special that pops out, but just extremely nostalgic.

(The only card that's missing is my Fossil Gengar 20, which I recently gifted to my cousin because he's a Gengar fan and started collecting cards around the same time I did lol).

Hope some people here can enjoy the pictures!
(Also sorry about the dim lighting lol.)

ALSO** I should put a disclaimer that this is just my "vintage" collection and I'm not adding more to it lol. I'm just keeping it as it is and holding on to it for as long as I can until I can eventually pass it on myself lol.

Then suddenly today, my stepdad (whose birthday is today 🥳) tosses me a Toploader and says, “Hey I found this under the couch in the basement a while ago, I think one of the cats probably pushed it down there 😭.” Then he says, “there’s also a card behind it too.” I died a little when I noticed my mother toploaded these things without penny sleeves, but God bless for still keeping them all these years 🥲. They were cooked to begin with even in the Toploader, but they’re all binder cards either way so idc lol. And with that, the bird trio is complete! 😃

Nostalgia

Where my Geodude fans at lol?

Taking a short break from collecting for personal reasons so I figured I might as well go out with a small bang. I was excited to open the packs! (Mainly chasing PO for Meowth and the Phantasmal Flames Charizard to gift to my stepdad for his birthday). The pulls overall from the Collection box weren’t looking too hot, but I couldn’t complain really. I got an IR and 2 ex’s I didn’t have yet to master the set 🙂. But then the last blister of Phantasmal flames. It all relied on this one final gamble on a single pack at the end….

And it gave me the Meowth IR 😃. It was like the last saving grace of a card that saved me (don’t misunderstand though, I’m still super elated from the pulls out the Collection box).

The only problem is… I pulled it already back in May 😭. Now I have 2. I guess I shall take this win 🥴

🍀

I don’t even like Wigglytuff like that 🤣 but they went 💯 with this artwork.

💫💨

1. My Suicune promo from the Knockout Collection with a double swirl, left and right of it, blue and red. (Love this card).
2. Chikorita promo with the swirl in the vase it’s smelling from 🤣.
3. Ogerpon with a triple swirl (third is in the bottom left corner lol).
4. Okidogi with a swirl and double orbs on its chain (I just thought the placement was pretty sick).
5. Fezandipiti with a swirl behind its neck.

(Maybe another one behind the tip of its feather I think?)

1. Darkrai Foil card from a Darkrai tin with a sick swirl in its hand! (One of my favorites!)
2. The most glittery Spiritomb who looks like it has no clue what it’s doing, but it has a swirl.
3. Okay Sableye doesn’t have a swirl, but I just wanted to add it because it doesn’t even have holo glitter anywhere BUT on its hand and the gem it’s holding (pretty cool).
4. Makuhita promo with a swirl behind its left shoulder.

—— Now we are getting into my childhood vintage collection ——

10. My Japanese Scyther stomping on his swirl 🙄.

11. Victreebel with that left swirl.

12. Idek if that is a swirl my Fossil Zapdos is hiding behind it lol.

13. Japanese Magneton with that vivid swirl.

14. Neo Revelations Entei Swirl.

15. Neo Revelations Suicune Swirl behind its pretty mane.

16. And finally after all these years, ever since seeing the movie, my parents buying me the ticket to get the card, and then looking at it nearly 25+ years later, I manage to find a swirl on my ancient Mew lol.

I think that’s it for now, hope everyone enjoyed the pictures. I know not everyone cares for swirls, but I thought some of these were pretty neat. I don’t go out my way to collect them, new ones were pulled and old ones were just from my childhood. Enjoy!

**I also have like 6 other Suicunes and 6 Kyogres from the Knockout Collection with Swirls but I felt like posting them would be redundant lol. I also forgot my Japanese Fossil Aerodactyl but oh well lol.

🪶

💨

I wasn’t into collecting Pokémon cards during those years, I just happen to be buying groceries and it came in a box of cereal so I just opened it for fun and kept it in the same blister pack all these years, and probably left it in some random shoebox lol. It wasn’t until this year I started collecting Pokémon cards back in March through a buddy of mine as a substitute hobby for being sober after 6 years daily. So I still treat this thing as my first official start card to my “new age” collection. I mean who doesn’t love Pikachu right??

Nothing crazy, but gotta love the art!

👊🏼

🍀

Not in the best of shape, has some whitening and even a crease. Do people like Magikarp I guess??