I was Inspired by this post and reading a lot of comments on this thread which made me feel a little better. I thought I deserved my own post. Attached are a couple of screenshots from my eBay sold history for your perusal as well as my email, and a final last photo.
I collected Pokemon for around 10 years in Australia, amassing what would only be considered a dream collection for even those with deep pockets these days. As a guide, if it was pre Legendary Collection, I owned it. Every card in English and Japanese from Base Set to Neo Destiny. All promos, as well as 95% or so of Japanese Promos, things like Japan Airline promo cards, Fan Club promo cards, not the worst but certainly up there was the Japanese no-rarity set before Base.. Yep, I owned it, but it gets worse of course… the elusive Daisuki Fan Club Cards, yeah I had those too. If you know… you know.
Eventually, I decided that I had achieved what I wanted to achieve, to collect them all so to speak, and my job at the time involved a lot of moving, so I didn't want them to go missing, get damaged or even keep lugging them around (it was a lot of folders that's for sure). So I decided it was time to let others enjoy them. So around 2011, I started listing parts of my collection for sale, and fully sold everything by mid 2015. Please remember as well, around this time, Pokemon was dying, and whilst I sold at a very small peak, back then a lot of us big collectors truly believed that was the peak and it was only going downhill. Then a little over a year later, Pokemon Go came out and everything changed. Then covid, then scalping, then here we are. Anyway I digress.
For the card sets, there were heaps of others I sold as well that were not listed, either on Gumtree (Craigslist for Aussies back in the day) / Facebook, or to people through email (people did that).
Now in Australia, we didn't get a lot of 1st Edition cards, so pretty much everything was unlimited bar a few cards here and there that I purchased. So on the plus side, at least I don't have to add 1st Edition Base to the list for me to be sad about. Anything that was graded, I didn't grade myself, it was purchased that way or traded etc. back in the day.
The five eeveelutions I purchased because I had so many Japanese promos and just though one day to myself, screw it, I'll buy the big hitters. They were probably $2000+ for the set when I bought them for the set at the age of 17-18 or so, which was a stupid amount back then at my age to spend on the hobby, even though I had a job and had moved out of home. I was probably in it for over $10,000 in the 10+ years I collected.
For those wondering… Yes I sold the big two separate to the Jolteon, Flareon and Vaporeon, outside of eBay. I can't remember the exact price at the time, but it was around $4,000 AUD. I originally had the set of five listed for $8,000 which was ludicrous, this was around the time when a 1st Edition Charizard in a PSA 10 was $3,000 or so and that seemed crazy. This was well over 10 years ago now, so I also unfortunately have very limited pictures. The last picture of the two is from my email that I sent to the guy who purchased them before sending them in the mail and that is one of the only photos I ever took besides for the listings that are long since gone.
Taken me a long time to post this. One of the biggest regrets of my life, knowing that given pricing right now, I was sitting on a fully paid off house in Australia in Pokemon cards so, please be kind <3
In a good news post, when 151 was released, I was inspired again to master set both English and Japanese which is now fully complete, including promos and Master (Mirror) Balls (in Japanese) with the exception of those pesky Voltorbs unfortunately.. maybe one day, and I sure as shit won't make the mistake of getting rid of them if they ever fall into my hands.
by Joshtammi