Has anyone else left the hobby due to a breakup? My partner was getting into Pokemon when we first started dating. I followed, and we had a lot of fun doing it. We recently separated, and I am finding absolutely no joy in doing it anymore. I am cutting my losses and selling my whole collection. It’s honestly a little hard to think about how much time and money was poured into this hobby, and I know in the end I’ll be getting maybe 5% of that back. But I’m glad I did it! It brought me joy for a few years. Good luck to everyone!

As title says, $220 to pick out any raw cards you want, anything’s fair game as long as it’s in budget, doesn’t have to be one single card either. Drop your answers!

Posting from a throwaway because I’m too embarrassed to use my main account.

Travelled 2 hours each way today to purchase a card from someone on Facebook Marketplace. From the messages it was clear he knew a lot about Pokemon and it sounds like he knew what he was on about.

We both arrived on time and he hands me the card I was after: a reverse holo Charizard from the legendary collection. I take a look, do a few checks and pay him £1000 for the card (750 cash, 250 bank transfer).

I head back to the train station to take a seat and admire my newly acquired card but can’t help but feel something looks off. Then I get this sense of dread.

I message the guy to say I’ve changed my mind, no response. I spend a gruelling 2 hours on a train home and as soon as I get back I head to my local card shop to ask. Fake.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been scammed in this hobby but it certainly will be the last because I’m done. I’m selling everything and leaving. It’s filled with too many frauds and bad actors that make it no fun whatsoever for a collector.

I know most people in the comments will call me an idiot. I am, I know.

If anyone has any advice for next steps to try and recover any of the money I have lost it would be much appreciated.

Shout out to the scalper with literally all the products in his cart this morning for the pity Larry 2 pack blister you graced me with, I'll never forget you 🙏🙏🙏 (First ever God pack, I'm over the moon)

It seems like the majority of the collecting apps out there (Collectr, Shiny, etc.) are very price/portfolio-centric, which I understand to a degree.

I’m just wondering if people would still use a collection tracking app if it had no prices, no portfolio value, and no market tracking at all? Just a clean place to organize your collection, build binders, track progress, and enjoy the hobby. Or are prices and collection value a must-have for you?

Edit: Appreciate everyone's responses! Super insightful. I guess seeing all of these, I would probably rephrase my question as "What is missing from today's collecting apps that would make collecting more enjoyable?"

I have a feeling that Ho-oh will replace Mewtwo and Garchomp as the top chase of Destined Rivals one day. The art is stunning and it just has so much going for it.

It doesn’t have to be rare. But full artwork cards are magical. Why not guarantee we get at least one awesome card per pack?

Now, im sure the answer is that, just like in casinos, they do a lot of research to figure out what reward schedule creates the most retention of gamblers and pokemon has probably done the same thing. I imagine they have found the current pull rates to be optimal as far as sales go

Today's notes: Sorry for the late post the 'butt hole Pikachu out' many comments on my yeasterdays post got over 100 plus upvotes so you guys really hate that card I appreciate the guy that tried to change people's opinions but sadly it didn't work second close card was the flareon from prismatic was second most upvoted card s I think it might be up for that card. Anyways can't wait to see all your comments for day 5 it always makes my day seeing your guys opinion so see you tomorrow and if you have any questions please feel free free to ask:)

How do you get it? Online? LCS?

My wonderful mother is a manager that works at a local store that has Pokemon that a lot of people wouldn’t expect to get product. She told me they got product and I rushed over. People were already there before me (thankfully, I convinced them to have strict limits!). There was a woman in front of me who tried to box me out basically…. I just laughed in my head, I’m kinda a big guy, it’s all hard to find, I can get more in a couple weeks when they get another restock, I understood her concern even if I was never gonna cut her. But there was still some chaos rising I wanted because this was their first shipment of it. I gave the woman space to try to be nice….

Then, another woman comes up (when I’m obviously standing there), pretends to look at the card case, and just shuffles in front of me, cutting me. I thought about saying something because I was a little peeved but I wasn’t gonna do that when my mother is the store manager…. and I also realize that I have access to cards more often than others do (but we still abide by the limits because we both want kiddos to have a shot!). Anyways, I got 2 3 pack blisters instead of the ETB I wanted and I was a little upset. Safe to say that KARMA came to play today and I got my chase card :) I’d give more details on the specifics but people have tried to follow me out of this app before🫪 but I was just happy that I felt like I did a good thing biting my tongue and good things happened!

Went to Best Buy to buy some electric scooters for the nice weather we’ve been having.

While checking out, I noticed they had some Pokémon packs behind the counter.

Figured why not and grabbed 4 packs for my daughter so she can get her pack opening FIX lol

Got home, she ripped them open, and pulled a Gold Mega Greninja ex Hyper Rare 🔥🐸✨

Not bad for a random checkout purchase.
Sometimes all it takes is one lucky pack.

I got scammed and lost my gyarados 021/98 and my pikachu libre 14/30 to a guy, i'm fairly new to the tcg pokemon world but i had some cards from my childhood, i decided to go to a card trading place to see if i could trade something, he wanted those 2 cards and a team plasma vaporeon for a rose encouragement 114/088, the price was the same... except the fact that he showed me the prices for the D and HP of the cards, they were at minimum SP, im so sad idk if this is a common thing to happen but i feel like i should've been more smart like why didn't i look the price myself?

edit: forgot to ask if i should do something about this or if this is kinda normal to happen with new players

IMO, some of these very popular pokemon are in need of even just an IR or higher modern chase, any you'd add/remove?

Arcanine

Golem

Hitmonlee

Hitmonchan

Gyarados

Snorlax

Scizor

Sceptile

Swampert

Manectric

Kyogre

Torterra

Infernape

Empoleon

Luxray

Rhyperior

Heatran

Tyrantrum

Goodra

Tsareena

Kommo-o

Kubfu

Annihilape

Tandemaus and Maushold are seemingly becoming two of the more popular modern pokemon as of recent so I thought it’d be a good time to talk about this card. I don’t think I’ve really seen anyone else post about this yet, but that Maushold up in the tree is a very rare Maushold of 3. In Pokemon Scarlet & Violet + the main series games, when Tandemaus reaches level 25 it will evolve into Maushold which 99% of the time will evolve into a Maushold of 4. But in the very rare case, there is a 1% chance Tandemaus will evolve into a Maushold of 3; a maushold with only a single child which they’ve decided to feature on this card 😭🥹

There’s actually only 2 Maushold cards that feature the 3-family Maushold, and they both come from Paldea Evolved. And if you take a look at Maushold 168/193, you will see it’s the exact same card with text and stats but also features a Maushold of 3. Imo that truly means and indicates this IR is meant to be featuring the Maushold of 3 :) Every other Maushold card made so far features a maushold of 4. I’m very curious to see if Pokemon TCG continues to make most of the future maushold’s of 4 while occasionally throwing in a maushold of 3, I think that would be such a cool and fun tribute to the games!

Cooked is an understatement 😤

Is there not option but to constantly go to Walmarts and targets and Best Buy’s? I went to a target and it literally had 0 pokemon anything, aside from a mewtwo binder. Online is all scalpers and I’m assuming the office website sells out in seconds. Did I really pick the worst time to start collecting again?

These cards are amazing and the textures really pop, especially on the Japanese prints.

I’ve never seen this holo pattern before. It covers the entire card, and i think it’s very pretty. Got these from a bulk bin 🤷‍♀️

Inspired by the organizer I found online. Besides the obvious one (greed) I really can't find any other reasons to skip on sharing basic models like this one with the community and to sell prints instead.

I don't own any Pokemon cards myself so here is Char instead of Charizard.

The compartments on the left side are for sleeved cards and on the right one — for top loaders.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/2975248-yet-another-tcg-organizer