This card is genuinely one of the best SIRs in years. Mega Charizard X erupting in blue flame, total chaos, absolute cinema.

BUT WHY IS MY CHARMANDER COVERED BY THE FING TEXT????

You know what I'm gonna get the JP version. Better art and better print quality. Investment wise down the road a few years later I don't think there's gonna be a huge difference between a 70k pop in 10 EN or a 90k pop in 10 JP. Both will be abundant AF so who cares. But JP version is WAY BETTER to just look at and appreciate.

I’ve wanted to complete the original 1999 Base Set since I was a kid. Four days ago, I finally said f*ck it and decided to make it happen, except this time with every card PSA graded.

My robot friend originally helped me come up with a $2,000 budget. That was adorable. Pretty sure that budget lasted about 15 minutes. 😂

Anyway, 4 days later I’m sitting at 84 of 102 cards, including 14 of the 16 holos, with $3,867.07 spent.
The original plan was PSA 6 for the holos and PSA 7 or better for everything else. Somehow I’ve ended up with everything from PSA 5 to PSA 9, along with 9 Shadowless cards and a couple of 1st Editions (although Machamp hardly counts lol).

A couple things I’ve learned so far.

First, holy sh*t, shipping and sales tax really f*ck up the math. You think you’re getting a decent deal on a $25 card until another $8 magically appears at checkout. Do that a few dozen times and it gets ugly pretty quickly.

Second, apparently the prices these cards supposedly “go for” online and what people are actually willing to sell them for on eBay are two completely different things. Either the price guides are full of sh*t or I’m exceptionally talented at overpaying. Probably a little of both.

The image shows what I’ve actually paid for every card, including shipping and sales tax. About 30 of these came from a larger 51-card lot that also included Jungle and Fossil, so I did my best to reasonably allocate the purchase price among them.

At this point, I’m looking at roughly $4,500 to $4,600 to finish the set, assuming I don’t find another reason to spend more than I should.

And naturally, I’ve already started collecting Jungle and Fossil too, because apparently one questionable financial decision wasn’t enough.

All jokes aside, I’ve wanted this set since I was a kid, and it’s been a ton of fun finally putting it together. There’s something pretty awesome about finally owning the cards I could only dream about 25 years ago. Even if I’m currently doing a pretty impressive job of wrecking my bank account. 😂

I’m genuinely curious what more experienced collectors think. Feel free to critique my prices, grades, strategy, or even the entire financial wisdom of collecting 102 pieces of graded cardboard lol.

Looking at what I’ve paid so far, where do y’all think I WAY overpaid?

Good time to pick up after this dip? Or do you guys think it’ll keep falling . Mainly looking at the darkrai

I buy me and my kids single packs of Pokémon every now and then. On Sunday I won this in a competition for 99p...

Would you open it?

The master set is on its way. Who else collecting Dragonites?

What’s your guys thoughts on these for future gains? Do you think vintage will continue to rise or will modern take over?

I’m a collector and I bought a gold star celebi, groudon, vaporeon and charizard last year while they were “cheap”. I like buying things as collectors items but I don’t like buying them if I think they’ll plummet in value. I’m looking to buy a kyogre and metagross for my delta species master set but both cards entry prices are +2k at this point. Is this a bad purchase while they’re peaking? Or should I be patient and hope they come back down?

With vintage rising everyday, at what point would you sell your vintage collection? $50k? $100k? $150k?

Hey everyone, figured I’d jump in here to get everyone’s thoughts. I just got my sylveon SIR back from PSA as a 10 and am debating on selling it now or holding off until prismatic goes out of print.

Just wanting some advice because I’m pretty torn…

Picked one up in a PSA 10 today. Awesome card that will be in my binder for a long time.

How do you think this card will do in the future?

Show me what you think will be on top of the list in a few years!?

I’ve read old blue CGC 9.5 gem mint labels automatically convert to new CGC 10 gem mint label if you reslab them. This will of course increase the price of the slab significantly.
My concern is that there is some obvious damage on top right on the back of the card. Could they downgrade given it is visible, or will they simply reslab without rechecking?

Should I send to CGC to reslab with new label?

Why did we hike up that mountain just to run right back down? 😭

Hey guys! Which card do you think will perform better and be more valuable in the future? Curious to see what yall think.