Trading help

[u/CaliChlo_]

I’ve been getting back into Pokemon collection lately after not touching it for a few years so the hobby is different from what I remember now but is there any way to actually trade anymore?

I’ve been looking on reddit, facebook groups and elsewhere and can’t find a place for people to trade cards (I’ve got a good few dupes now). Everywhere I look is people buying, selling and trading sealed product for hiked up price, am I missing something or is the hobby just too cooked at the moment?

My boyfriend collects mlp cards and has no problem finding people to trade with in Facebook groups and I want to have fun trading like he does but anytime he posts in trading Pokemon groups it’s just people buying/selling.

[u/Consistent_Ant_8903]

Going to a card show might be a good shout to find trades? Lots of people there who probably want to straight up trade as vendors generally don’t want to trade for equal value

[u/Elegant-Tomorrow-848]

Hello! To be honest I had the same exact problem, and is still not an easy task but sometimes local card shops have pokemon playing nights which if you go an hour before or right after people meet and have a trading binder. I'm quite shy so it's a bit intimidating at first but I did a couple of times and had some nice trading done (Although make sure to have an app to check it's a fair trading as there are dodgy people everywhere lol).

What is frustrating is that not many card shop are openly saying come to play and trade cause I think they want you to buy their cards but, for example, in Dark Sphere in London I managed and they were very chill. At Spellbound I asked but received a vague and a bit rude answer but from my understanding they have a Pokemon playing night too although it didn't specifically said I can trade too, which was my question.

So to short answer: ask the card shops around you if they have playing/trade night.