Collecting Pokemon Cards 15 years ago
Before the scalpers, influencers, rip-n-ships, and Logan Paul, what was collecting Pokemon cards like back in the days where no one really cared about the $$, slabs, or flipping for a profit?
So I've been collecting Pokemon on and off for nearly 25 years, seen the highs and lows. I left Pokemon the first time in 2004 for Yu-gi-oh (and also our local Pokemon League ended after Expedition came out)
In 2011, I was bored. Just graduated, had a full time job, and lived in a city where there was nothing to do (Cupertino), so I decided to pick up Black and White and liked it so much, to eventually find my way back into a Pokemon League.
As a nice nostalgic touch, I found many of my friends (and their parents) were still playing! They went through the E-Reader, Nintendo, and HGSS era still coming to their local Pokemon League.
As for prices, if you wanted the TL DR
2011 Prices
Sealed Product
Pack - $3.99 MSRP. Box - $144ish
If you looked online or knew a distributor, then you could find booster boxes for $83-90 per box and Cases for $500 shipped!
There were no Pokemon Center queues, campouts, or fights at Costco.
Top Chase Cards (Tail end of HGSS era)
Top Cards were determined by playability. Magnezone Prime ($40-60) and Yanmega Prime ($60-70) were the most expensive and didn't come in a tin. Most other playable cards were reprinted and/or came in cheap tins, so most decks were < $30-40 to play.
Other niche cards included Mew Prime ($8), Gengar Prime ($10) and Kingdra Prime ($8). Everything else was $2-4.
Vintage
Most PSA 9 -10 cards (including 1st edition base set) were in the $30-1000 range. Of course a PSA 10 1st Ed Charizard was still decently expensive for the time, but I ended up obtaining a PSA 9 for $250 in 2011.
Other cards of note
- Gold Stars ($20-60)
- Neo Shinings ($10-50)
- Vintage 1st Edition Holos ($10-40)
Slabs
Grading with PSA was $10 per card in bulk and came within a few weeks. However, grading culture wasn't much of a thing as it took research to figure out how to send cards correctly. And most people were just Pokemon fans that didn't care about slabs. As a nice caveat, most mint-ish cards were actually good PSA 10 candidates on Facebook / eBay / Craigslist etc..., as opposed to now if you see a Bubble Mew / Mega Charizard Ex at a vendor, it's getting a PSA 9 at best
Ripping Packs / Sealed
The Pokemon online game (along with code cards) came out with Black and White Base and the code cards were set-specific (Ex. a BW Base code card could only be redeemed for a BW base pack online). So new code cards were often sold for $1-1.25 per card
Booster Box Math
A box is about $90, you could sell the 36 code cards for about $40. Bulk was often being purchased in this era for $40/1000 cards as well.
Also sets were also much easier to complete as you could comfortably complete a master set in 1-2 booster boxes + do some trades for the remaining reverse holoes.
Vibes
People have always opened Pokémon cards because they enjoy collecting.
There have always been valuable cards, competitive players, serious collectors, and people trying to get a good deal.
But in 2011, money wasn’t the central language of every Pokémon conversation.
People weren’t immediately asking:
- “What does this grade?”
- “What’s the population?”
- “Should I hold or sell?”
- “What’s the return on investment?”
Most people were opening packs because they wanted to complete a set, improve a deck, collect their favorite Pokémon, or trade with someone at League.
A $100 purchase felt like it could get you a ton of Pokémon stuff you were genuinely happy to own.
The hobby wasn’t necessarily better in every way. Product availability was smaller, competitive cards could still be frustratingly expensive, and Pokémon was far less culturally relevant than it is today.
I'm not trying to be an old man yelling at clouds, but just wanted to share what it was like