Collecting Strategy

piecemeal

On An Adventure
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    Anyone want to talk collecting strategy? Essentially I'm going for 1 each of all the pokemon from the base sets & expansions. At the moment I'm using a combo of eBay lots, boosters, and the odd singles buy. Once I have a deeper stock of doubles trading will become a good option. What do others do?
     
    I buy the blister packs I find in big box retailers that still have intact, authentic boosters, I buy packs from hobby shops of the current sets I don't have many from, and I trade the good duplicates that I don't want to use in a deck away for cards I don't have. And then there's buying cards are garage sales and yard sales. And buying cards off of family members who have no interest but have a sizable number of rare cards. I'll buy singles every once, in a while, but I just like the satisfaction I get from opening a booster pack.
     
    The big box blisters are a good call. I've had some fun with those. There's a thrill opening the boosters that I don't get with the other ways. "I know there's something good in here... but what?" At first I was like, $4 for 9-10 cards, man that is rough! But it's that thrill that I'm really paying for, especially as the collection grows and the doubles become frequent. "This could contain..." *imagination runs wild*

    With the eBay lots I usually have little idea what I'm in for to the point that it's hard to get too excited until I see what I have. The price sure is right versus boosters though. Savvy sellers will pull the rare stuff and sell it separately, which is a turnoff, but the lack of consistency also means that "anything could be in there...!"

    Is there a certain goal you're trying to attain (collect for playing, for a 'collection'?)
     
    If you planning to buy, i'm sure you can find places to get a Master Set/Complete set of the cards for a certain set. But that might not be as fun to do.
     
    Well, as a kid I used to collect at random, but now I actually worry about condition and attempt to complete my sets. I prefer the Japanese sets to English, and I tend to order booster boxes from Japan to complete sets... last one was Lost Link, which fortunately only had 40 cards in it, so I only had to buy one box. If it's a bigger set I sometimes have to buy two. I find booster boxes to be the most economical, especially because I can order them for relatively cheap on ebay, and because in Canada booster packs are rediculously expensive. Even Walmart sells packs for $5.50 :\ Then I got into the game a few months ago, so now I also collect cards that I would never even look twice at as a collector, stuff like Poketurn and the like. Right now, I'm trying to get a Donphan prime to complete HGSS, and I'm working on a Gyarados collection, which I'm hoping will contain all Gyarados cards including English, Japanese, 1st ed, and all holo-variations. I generally have to get those from ebay, which takes a while to complete, so I only have about 20 different ones at the moment. I would say ebay is my main source for collecting.
     
    Bingo3000: You're right, that approach takes the fun out (not to say I might not do it if the price was right).

    Rocket_Executive: Interesting. Your collections sound cool. I think it takes some guts to go for the Japanese sets vs. the English-language sets. I checked out your photobucket too... pretty. Re: Donphan Prime... it's is the only prime I have! I only have 15 cards from that set now.

    I can see how the booster boxes are a good way to go. I can only imagine how awesome it is to crack one of those open. Had any troubles with fakes? I heard about people selling fakes on eBay.
     
    Yeah the booster boxes are really exciting to open ^^ I have way too much fun with those. I've been trying to upload my entire collection to the photobucket account but it's so tedious, I end up only uploading the most interesting ones of each set. One day I'll do it!
    As for fakes, I've never received one fake on ebay. I tend to only buy from sellers with a lot of positive feedback, and I think if you just keep to the ones with lots of experience and good reputations then you won't have to worry about fakes. I mean, if some random seller is selling a luxray gl lv x for like, $10 and you buy it, then you have to take some of the blame for being that naive.
    And congratulations on the HGSS set! That's pretty close to completion.
     
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