Take a trip down nostalgia lane with me in this video of my master binder! This VaultX 12 pocket XL binder has 624 card slots that I painstakingly organized to fit all my completed sets, down to the last available slot. The collection includes pack arts, variants, and classic memorabilia from the WOTC Era of Pokemon.
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Base Sets – Shadowless and Unlimited – I start my binder out with the classics, with full sets of pack arts for both the shadowless printing as well as the unlimited. Finishing both rows are the Pokemon TCG game "flipping card" insert from Nintendo Power magazine as well as my original DCI Player card from my Pokemon League days. From there, I laid out both sets card by card, side by side. It's awesome seeing the variance between printings! I also have 6 variations of pikachu: shadowless red cheeks, Unlimited yellow, shadowless yellow, yellow E3, Japanese CD promo (English), and yellow cheeks Poketour from Australia. Added all together, that is 216 slots for my Base sets, which is 18 pages exactly in the binder! Allows for a clean and consistent start for the next set, with no spaces.
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Jungle – 1st Edition – This set also starts with the pack arts and moves right into 1st editions of my second childhood set. I also display the gold border Meowth that was part of the Fruit Rollup campaign. The pack arts plus the set and extra meowth came to 68 sleeves, leaving 4 open on the last page. The perfect amount of room to add…
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Prerelease Cards – To round out that page, I added the 4 prerelease cards! I recently picked up the gold stamp aerodactyl variant and it'll live behind the brown stamp one now. But so pleased this mini set can live in this space so perfectly.
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Fossil – 1st Edition – Same deal here! Starting with pack arts and displaying the complete set of Fossil from my childhood. 7 slots are left over after the pack arts and art (65 sleeves), which is the perfect amount of space for…
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Wizard "W" Stamp cards – This mini set has 7 specially stamped cards by Wizards of the Coast, nestled nicely after the Fossil set in my binder. NO SPACES (are you starring to see my OCD yet?)
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Team Rocket – 1st Edition – Pack arts plus the full set here. One of my favorite sets from childhood, I thought the arts were absolute fire! So this set added up to 87 sleeves taken between packs and cards, leaving me with 6 card space to fill before I added my Black Star Promos (to make everything even). So for those slots…
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Japanese Promos – I added one of the Base set pack arts from Japan to finish the row and then added some of my favorite cards in tcg history: the Big 3 from the Trade Please Campaign in Japan, the Dragonite GB promo, and the 4th forgotten card "Trade Please" which is one of two in Pokemon tcg history with a holographic back! The arts on these are some of my all time favorites and I love the history behind them.
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Black Star Promos – This set has 53 cards but I also collected many of the variants (no errors) that exist as well which are displayed alongside their counterpart. Starting out, Ivy Pikachu has two notable variants here, the 1st edition "Error" found in Jungle packs (considered to be the first secret rate) and the gray star variant found in hyper corocoro comics in Japan. Jigglypuff also has a gray star variant here as well! Other notable variants are the Glosssy Gotta mag Mew, JP Rally Meowth, Eevee, & Mewtwo, World Collection Birthday Pikachu, and NYC Pokemon Center Rapidash and Ho-oh. Behind many of the cards is also the promo insert that they came with too! Moved Suicine next to Celebi so the eReader cards all looked clean together. The set cleanly ends by filling the page, allowing for the next set to start fresh
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Best of Game Promos – This set was 9 cards with 6 additional variants that had "Winner" stamped on them. This set is one of the forgotten ones from this era, a gift from WOTC as their licensing of Pokemon ended. To round out the 15 cards, I added one of my Ancient Mews here, leaving 8 spaces on the page. Perfect for:
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Energize Your Game Promos – In 2002, the Pokemon League gave away full foil energy cards and trainers, 8 for 8 seasons. They are so pretty and glitter so nicely with the reverse foils from the Best of Game set. Those 8 complete the page, allowing the next set to start cleanly (so satisfying)
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Tropical Islands – This 18 card set is one of the most iconic and with some of the most whimsical art! I ordered it on the page the way it was designed, 3×3, and framed it with the 5 Pokemon Snap Blockbuster cards and one Japanese Pikachus Vacation Phone Card. This set always reminded me of the N64 game and it all just felt so appropriate.
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Pokemon Poker Cards – At this point, I have 60 slots left. The first 4 are Ancient Proxies made by Rushfortacos. I love them but they are essentially placeholders for the Ancient Mew variants I'm probably going to pick up over time. The last 56 slots I saved for the 1996 and 1998 Japanese Pokemon Poker cards. Each one of the color deck backs is represented and the each of the suits takes up a page, with the aces on the first one. Many people don't know that most of the cards in these decks have up to 4 variants, so you would have to get many decks to try and get all 150 original Pokemon since each playing card deck is only 52 cards! Another quest over time for me.
And that is my journey through the binder. If you got this far, I hope you enjoyed it!
by rskimmel