Rebuilding Collection of Original 150

[Anti]

I hope this is the right place for this?

10k posts in and I don't think I've ever posted here or any predecessor subforums despite the TCG being the original cornerstone of my fandom!

So, I recently went on a nostalgia trip for my old collection (which I either lost or sold, I think the latter) and decided I wanted to get it going again in earnest. I am only interested in the original 150 Pokemon and their cards from Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil (BS2 is fine but I like the star-style holos better), which is 158 cards total as far as I can tell. I don't want the non-holo versions of rares that have a holo.

I have a bunch of common and uncommon cards, probably all of them (though not all in the best condition) in my basement. What I'd like is to fill in the holos with high-quality cards. I would like some percentage of them to be 1st edition, but certainly not most of them--maybe 6 or 7 out of the like 45 or so possible holos? I'd like to spread those to a few of the run of the mill Pokemon as well if possible. I assume those would come from Fossil or Jungle since Base Set can get crazy, and the lighter color/thinner text looks bad to me anyway. I would say that I am most interested in how the cards look over how rare they are or anything like that.

So with that, I have a few questions:

- Where are the best places to buy singles where I can trust card authenticity and quality while not getting gouged on price? Right now I'm mostly looking at ebay out of habit from Lego shopping, and I do like seeing the PSA-graded stuff, but I am unsure if it's ideal.

- Would a single 1st edition booster pack of both Fossil and Jungle be a decent investment or should I just cherry-pick some random 1st edition Rhydons or Grimers or whatever where I can get them? The packs seem really expensive, though reliving the joy of opening a pack sounds nice.

- Biggest question is how can I best display/store these in a way that preserves the quality of the cards? While the dream would basically be a giant frame with all of them, that seems...expensive, and a pain. A binder like I had when I was a kid is fine, but the quality of the pages was suspect--are there any high-quality 9-card pages on the market that aren't a rip-off?

- Similarly, any recommendations on card sleeves? Mostly thinking about quality, but cool styles welcome as well. I'm a bit out of my element on this.

- Any miscellaneous tips, tricks, etc. going about this? I don't think there are any card shops in my area, sadly, and I think my research has reached diminishing returns.

Any help is appreciated. I will say that I never had all of the original 150 Pokemon--I had 149, with Articuno being the missing piece. This still upsets me, so might as well right that wrong, eh? Also, bonus: if anyone has any tips tracking a Japanese Charizard, I would like to get one for sentimental reasons relating to the best birthday gift ever from many years ago...

 

[donavannj]

Everything's going to be pricey from that era and ahrd to find. At least the rares. Commons and uncommons, even first editions, will be in abundance.

And a 1st edition booster is worth more as a booster than the cards in it at this point, most likely.

just a couple quick things before I go to bed. I'll probably be back with more info later this weekend, if Fairy or someone else doesn't jump in before then.

 

[Hands]

Try and find a good Razz group on Facebook, it's a gamble but it's the cheapest way to get good gear.

Razz is basically a lottery system, there'll be a card or a lot put up with a value of say $60, they'll then say "60 slots at $1" or something and you buy the slots, the admins then use number generators to roll the slot numbers. Whoever's number comes up wins the item. Obviously it's high risk in the sense that you have a low chance of winning, but its also much cheaper

 

[Anti]

been meaning to reply, so thanks for the responses.

to update, i found a a couple sets on ebay that i pulled the trigger on...$15 for the non rare fossil set 1st edition was a steal, and i bought a full collection of unlimited jungle so that is done. will populate with some 1st editions later--you were right, that stuff is easy to find cheap with a little patience.

so my main concern is starting to turn to displaying stuff. i continue to have bad luck finding solid binder page options...am i stupid? lol. and i would like to display the holos separate, which i know will still take up a lot of space. are there any decent options from cramming a 4x13 card display into some sort of frame or something? not sure if that's really something many people in this forum are doing as opposed to building and playing decks, but thought i'd take a stab anyway.

i also just wanted to say that fossil dragonite is probably the GOAT card ngl, can't wait to grab one