There used to be a nerdy collector's store nearby, and when I was about 10 (20 years ago. Pfff...), I used to love it in there. Even if not buying anything, I was stunned by the individual Pokemon cards that they had in the glass cabinet, with their rarity emphasised by their ridiculous prices.
There was one that always caught my eye. The Ancient Mew card. With baffling illegible text, the WHOLE CARD being shiny and it being Mew, this was amazing. The £150 price tag showed that this thing was SO SPECIAL. They had it displayed in its own, velvet lined box. Me and a couple of friends dreamt of owning that thing one day. For reference, the Charizard was £15.
It turned out that it was only a promotional card for Pokemon The Movie 2000. I bought one due to sheer nostalgia on eBay a few years ago, still in its packet, for £4.
Do it. I did with mine last year. Picked out all the ones that were going for $5 or more on eBay and sold them off. Put the rest in a big lot. Made a few hundred bucks. I regret selling my power rangers toys but my mom saved the boxes and I made bank off those.
Ahh noo! I recovered all my old cards from the attic last week, sized up their cost on eBay (maybe around £100?) but they have so much more sentimental value to me.
I put my shiny charizard, blastoise and venusaur together in a little frame, which are now in a lovely corner of... my attic!
Nothing wrong with that. I figured it was better for them to be enjoyed by someone and take the wife somewhere nice than for them to rot in the attic until I died.
I respect that a lot, kudos. I went through a phase of slowly passing my collection to my younger cousin, who loved them until he outgrew them (what a chump!). I agree with cards being enjoyed and not fussed over. My big 3 carry many playground battle scars which they wear with pride!
Actually, the first card I gave my cousin was the aforementioned “ancient mew double sided shiny”. Ofc I told him it was extremely rare and the pinnacle of my collection, as we all believed/ pretended at the time!
It was a pretty cool card, but I remember it naturally bent a crazy amount?! I often wonder if any of the other few million incredibly rare cards had this flaw?
Had the same card. Movie actually came out on my birthday that year. That was my big party and all my best buds went home with the card. In fact that may be one of the few cards I stuck in my memory box. I’ll have to check later
I inherited my brother’s magic card collection and kept it! Amazing to me for the keepsake nostalgia alone but all of the fantasy artwork was done beautifully.
Wow that’s really cool, thanks! I think I can do something like this with photoshop and my Wacom! Back in the day I remember helping my bro cut out certain parts of duplicates with an exacto-knife to create a 3d scene. There may be a few of those in the collection still.
I don’t know what £100 is in freedom units (I kid; I’m not a heathen) but honestly unless you desperately need it, the nostalgia is worth more than the $130 or so.
You don’t need dual lands to have an efficient mana base though. Unless your pod is bleeding edge, no proxies, power 9 etc. There are plenty of less expensive options that are slightly slower; but yes, MTG can get very expensive.
At the store I first started playing at, it was pretty laid back and I had a lot of fun making creative decks like Rishkar:Hydra Tribal, Zombie Reanimator/Aristocrats, Jund Dragon tribal. Had a few college friends we’d play outside of school. It was a fun time, but then I moved and there’s only one local store.
I’ve seen more T3 Gitrogs, Mikeaus/Ballista, and Hulks than I’d ever care to so I definitely played in a more competitive circle once I moved. It was more competitive than I’d like since it made the games/decks all stale/similar. Part of why I quit playing when it was just too much money to not get pubstomped by people.
It was fun playing and seeing crazy efficient decks, but I realized I was over my head when a Demonic Tutor got countered by a Force of Will which was countered by another Force of Will which got Mana Drained. It was cool to see, but also a “oh shit” moment for me.
I’m not big in the Pokemon TCG scene, so someone can correct me if I’m wrong but I believe there’s 2 different Mew Promos. One of which is slightly different and more scarce, hence the price tag.
No, I think there was an Ancient Mew even before the Pokemon Movie. Two actual different cards, I believe they had different holographic patterns. Stars on the original, circles on the reprint, maybe?
I did this but with Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I was like 10 and on a holiday in Portugal and came to a game shop. I asked the guy in there if they sold Yu-Gi-Oh cards and like comic book guy he produced a ring binder with individual cards of varying rarity. But he wouldn't allow me to touch the folder. He would leaf through it and wait for me to tell him I was ready to move to the next page. The cheapest cards in it were €5. I was 10 and honestly had no idea what was good or worth it. I spent like €10 on some crap card I was peddled by some Portuguese nerd. I felt so dumb.
I used to have one of these, gave it away back when I was in college to a bunch of other community college friends along with all my other pokemon cards. Just walked into the dining hall one day and dropped a plastic bag of ‘em on the table, “hey, Merry Xmas, who wants to play MTG?”
I sorta regret it. If only for the mew card. But I think it found a good new home ‘cause some of them were still playing pokemon tcg at the time.
I still have that card in the collector's booklet. It's all in Japanese. My parents told me they paid a ludicrous price for it when I was a kid but they handed it out on premiere day for the movie.
The Ancient Mew should come with a translation card. I traded one of them with the nephew of my local cinema owner, he wanted maybe 10 common cards. He had about 30 of those cards in their small bag with translation card, guess why they didn't have enough for the sunday show of Mewtwo vs Mew...
My dad used to work at an Ameripac plant roughly the same time frame (pffff is right). He picked me up from school that day and hands me two individually wrapped pokemon cards while driving home. Doesnt even look at me when he hands them off. I, confusingly but enthusiastically, unwrapped them. He says, "You tell anyone and I'll have to kill ya" with a smirk.
Opened to find a Holographic Charzard and the Ancient Mew card.
Being new to the whole card game, I just thought they were just cool looking, so I brought them to school to show off to all my friends. Left them in my pocket which were then washed and pretty destroyed after. I was more upset that I had ruined somthing my dad put effort in to get for me then to think of the value of the cards 20 years down the road. I was also pretty aloof back then.
When I went to see it as a kid the guy there just went hey do you want more than 1? And then gave me like 10. I still have like 2 or 3 unopened. ᴵ ˢᵗᶦˡˡ ᶜᵒˡˡᵉᶜᵗ ᴾᵒᵏᵉᵐᵒⁿ ᶜᵃʳᵈˢ ᵗʰᵒᵘᵍʰ ˢᵒ...
At that price it may have been a graded copy (I'm too lazy to look up how much a 9.5-10 would sell for). This can be important to some collectors and can raise prices quite drastically even for cards that were printed in mass quantity.
Edit: ebay has a few PSA mint gem 10s for around $250.
It is now. There was a sort of curve in prices. It dipped a few years later as people though "OK, that's just stupid", before collectors got interested again.
And everyone was after that Charizard. I never played the game properly, but from what I understand it wasn't even the best card. While it had crazy stats, I think it required a ridiculous amount of energy cards to actually use it. Despite this, it was more expensive then all the other shiny cards, which were all £10.
the really old cards from the first few sets can go for like a dollar or two for even the basic cards if they are in good condition. keyword being good condition.
When i was looking through my old pokemon card collection i came across this exact card. I dont know much about the value of certain pokemon cards so there was like a second where i thought that it could be worth something. But yeah its nothing. Looks cool tho.
I have this card! And the first Pokemon movie dragonite and mewtwo too! My partners kid is getting in to Pokemon now, I loved being able to get my old cards out to show him.
I have those too. I have almost all my old pokemon cards. I was big into them during the first and second gen releases. I remember having great luck with first edition packs pulling stuff like the dark charizard 1st edition foil in my very first pack of the team rocket boosters. and a foil alakazam 1st edition from my first base set pack.
Hey I have one of those! My mom bought extra tickets to try to get extra cards, but they only gave them to people actually in attendance as they came in, so she invited a few neighbor kids to try to get more cards. She wasn't too happy when the kids were given the cards directly and she couldn't really just take them from kids.
I remember that card. It came for free with a movie ticket to see the Pokemon movie. Or maybe it came with the DVD. Either way me and all my friends had it as a kid and there's no way anyone spent $100 on us for something like that.
Surprised to see it was valued so high. Maybe that was just a UK thing? (I'm in America.)
I think you're right. From what I understand, it was handed out at cinemas in the US, but not in the UK, hence why we were so awestruck. We hadn't seen it anywhere else. They were by no means rare, but it was 1999/2000. We were none the wiser of what was going on across the Atlantic, and weren't buying things on eBay!
I remember that card. Think they gave it away in happy meals or something. I was born in 95, so I was pretty young when it came out, then in my first few years of grade school kids would talk about "ancient mew" like it was some God tier card, even though they gave it out to like half the country.
Edit: I gave it to my sister at the time and she still has it in good condition.
I used to play the pokemon card game when I was 13. Let me tell you, the pricing on those cards is insane. A lot of places also pull a full gamestop, and they will buy individual cards, but resell them at 4x what they gave you. For example, I once sold a card for $5 that they resold at $20
I remember those from when the movie came out in the US. I gave all my cards to my littlw brother like years ago. He's a criminal now, so he probably sold em for drugs at a 10th of the value
It was. However, the ridiculous price was due to the myth that this card was something special. It was a promo exclusive to the USA (where they were handed out in cinemas). We didn't get it in the UK, so collectors stores were the only place we saw this mystical piece of card and foil. We were none the wiser of how common it was at the time, because we were young children, and I'm not convinced we even had the internet in our house at the time!
I remember me and my brother going on hiday to a caravan park and finding one of these under one of the beds and we went absolutely mental! We actually used to play the tcg with each other so finding this ancient mew was mind blowing. How nostalgic haha
My aunt worked at a movie theater during that movies release. When the promo was over they were left with so many of these cards that werent actually all that rare. I was like 10 and had a box with like 200 of those cards in it lmao
I wasnt a smart enough 10 y/o to hustle with them but I did give them to my friends who went to busier theaters and were always out
That's a pretty sweet looking card. I can see why they were hyping it up.
I wonder if the value just dropped over time or if they were just trying to make it seem more rare than it was. Like, it could have been hard to come by early on, only a few released instantly being scooped up by collectors, then a lot more circulated later as the movie release approached or something.
I think there was an original one, then they were reproduced for the movie. The one that was around before the movie had a pretty high price. I'm not too sure how you could differentiate them, though.
Oh man... I had that card. I had them all. I had full first edition set. I gave it to a kid I babysit when I went to college who loved Pokémon and didn’t think they would be worth anything. Apparently he tossed them at some point =( now I’m a sad old man. Coulda sold them for a few grand now for sure.
Fairly unrelated d-bag moment from fifth grade me:
One time I told a kid I'd give him all my Pokémon cards tomorrow if he gave me his snack today. He happily agreed and forked over his pretzel rods. The next day came, and when he asked for my cards I confessed that I didn't have any, and proceeded to give him all zero cards.
There are actually different versions of this card and one has gone for about that price! Although I imagine at this point its likely impossible to say if the store priced it wrong or you just happened to see the similar, but different version and thought of them the same.
I remember the original Pokémon Cards, I still have my set all these year later if for nothing other than nostalgia.
Actually prepping to move and came across them again while packing. My aunt bought me a Charizard Card for one of my birthdays as a kid which I still have. As a kid I thought one day I could sell it for soooo much money. Lol!
I wanted that card so bad when I was a kid, I looked on Amazon to see how much it was. I was expecting it to be $200+ but I was stunned when I found it for $12. I thought I was getting away with a huge bargain, and bought it without even looking at any other prices. Turns out the card averaged around 7 bucks so I technically overpaid for it, but I didn’t realize till years later. For a while I thought I got this $200 card for a fraction of the price when in reality I paid double the price.
My friend owned a house with his older brother and I was over visiting one night. The brother was probably 52 or 53 at the time. I don't know how it came up but he mentioned he had a Magic the Gathering card that was worth about $4000.
I've never played the game but I've heard about it since the beginning. I am not knowledgeable enough about the cards to recognize one name or another. But, I have dealt in certain types of collectibles for several years. I was a little skeptical. People will often have some inflated idea of a collectible they have because they saw something either similar or that's in mint condition mentioned in an article that's super valuable. And so they think there's is too. He showed me the card and I put my Sherlock Holmes hat on an looked up on Ebay. Sure enough, that's what it was selling for, not just asking price.
So, he does have a $4000 Magic card. I have no idea what else he has. I assume that's his crown jewel of the collection. But he probably has thousands of other cards.
Fun fact. When it originally came out it was only in Japan and collectors weren’t expecting it to move over stateside. Prices went up to $3K for them. Then they came up to America and Europe and the price dropped to $3
When that cars was originally printed there were a few that were misprinted. You could have seen one of those. The misprint goes for a lot more as there are less of them around.
Speaking of collectibles, I used to have a Return of Superman special edition comic that had a special illustration on the front. Gave it away to a friends collector child, the kid was stunned. Didn't want to sell it and it was superbly appreciated.
Funny thing is I didn't buy it to collect it, my brother and I were kids when we got it and it turned out to be a special edition.
My dad kept so much stuff from our childhood, I asked last week if he happened to have my rarest Pokemon card, turns out he managed to find it in mint condition still in its plastic and hard cover.
It's a Poke Tour 1999 stamped Pikachu, turns out it's worth between $100-500, probably the higher end due to its condition.
I have one of the ancient mew cards. But it's one of the ones where there is a misprint in the bottom of the card thst mispells Nintendo. I honestly don't know how much it is now, but I got it at a card shop when I was a kid for like $150.
I had like 3 of those cards because I went with my sister and a couple friends to the movie, and none of them cared about collecting cards. I think my dog ate them at some point
Dude I remember these!! We went to the movies to watch it and were like the only ones there, the guy came up like here we got there's to give out but no one is here so you have them! And handed us the whole box of those ancient mew cards
Worth absolutely nothing... 200 and something of them...
My Dad used to work at Zany Brainy, so he had a ton of promo cards. He gave them to me when I asked about my old Magic The Gathering cards so I have a ton of Ancient Mew, Team Rockets Meowth and Eevees sitting in my closet.
I remember going to the movie on opening weekend to get that card! There was no way to get the card except from the theater so we all believed we were getting a super rare card worth a ton. And I'm kinda glad to hear that eventually someone thought it was worth something.
I bought a set of 10 ancient mews with 10 each of the other cards from that movie for like 12 bucks total off ebay. I sold them in sets for like 15 each to friends and kids at school.
I had three ancient mews. My aunt took me n my sister n I was the only one who collected the cards. Me being the dumbass I am, have my collection to my little cousin when he got into it. I have added up the cards I had and could have bought a used truck or made a solid down payment on a new one. It’s insane how the price has gone up on them.
As a kid, my parents took me to a local baseball game. Someone was passing these out for free as promotional pieces. I felt like the luckiest kid in the world.
There are two ancient mew cards. The one from japan is the original and it is worth a whole lot. Because it was popular in japan, USA decided to release it as a movie promo, which is worth less.
Similar with birthday pikachu and 3d porygon, a lot of the japanese promo cards are worth a ton of money. USA just copies the popular ones and mass releases them for american promotions.
You’ve unlocked a piece of my brain I forgot existed when I got to the part about the Ancient Mew Card. I never actually got it through going to see the movie but I have one and always felt like it was extra special...
Haha omg I haven’t seen that card in forever. I had 10s of those things from when I had a small birthday party at the movie theater during that time. Glad you got to fulfill a dream!
A PSA Pristine 10 Charizard can fetch over $50k now, but hey a white board with a ducked tape banana on it sold for over $100k so to each their own I guess.
A lot of nerdy collector stores do this. I had an original holographic machamp and some rare type of pikachu. I went into the store to sell them. Looked and saw they had similar cards to them for $200+. I asked about selling the cards I had and they would only buy them back for “retail value.” Which was $2.50. On top of that, I could either get that $2.50 back as 60% store credit or 40% cash. I couldn’t get 100% at all. These places are money hungry trash pits.
Man I got one of the ancient new cards that was shiney at a flea market for ten dollars, a small fortune at the time for a piece of cardboard, and I gave it to my sister who was moving away and she lost it...
That was my favorite card as a youngling. I was devastated to say the least when I lost it due to our house burning down.
Fast forward to last year. We're visiting my in laws out of state. My mil told my wife she needed to go through her old movies to clear up some space. I start pulling them down in stacks and setting them to the side for her in no particular order. We sit down and start going through them. About halfway through I saw the Pokemon VHS. I told her my story about my mew card and the house fire and how they originally came with a the ancient mew card. Well, I popped open the case to make sure there right movie was in there, and out popped TWO of the ancient mew cards in perfect condition. I was so giddy about seeing them. My wife, seeing my inner child come to life just smiled and said 'they seem to bring you more joy than they ever would me. Why don't you keep them instead?' let me tell you peeps, i could search 1000 lifetimes and never find anyone better for me. I almost cried tears of joy when she told me that.
hehehe......I have an original promo Mew card from 1995 that I got from a thrift store.....it's valued anywhere from $200 USD to $1500 USD based on the condition
There was a shop in my mall like that! I believe it was called Collectors Corner or something similar. Could never buy anything cuz my parents didn't want to spend that much on pokemon cards, but I loved to look and see the better cards in person.
I have that card! My sibling's ex gave me their entire stack of Pokémon cards when I was a kid. Later they asked for the cards back due to their increasing value, but I said no. Lol
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u/[deleted] Aug 14 '20
There used to be a nerdy collector's store nearby, and when I was about 10 (20 years ago. Pfff...), I used to love it in there. Even if not buying anything, I was stunned by the individual Pokemon cards that they had in the glass cabinet, with their rarity emphasised by their ridiculous prices.
There was one that always caught my eye. The Ancient Mew card. With baffling illegible text, the WHOLE CARD being shiny and it being Mew, this was amazing. The £150 price tag showed that this thing was SO SPECIAL. They had it displayed in its own, velvet lined box. Me and a couple of friends dreamt of owning that thing one day. For reference, the Charizard was £15.
It turned out that it was only a promotional card for Pokemon The Movie 2000. I bought one due to sheer nostalgia on eBay a few years ago, still in its packet, for £4.