I made a similar post last year where I bought some Booster Boxes, but given their price and age of the edition it was quite obvious that they were fake, nevertheless it was quite fun to open them up and they weren't that badly made. I still have them somewhere but this time I decided to look for some real ones.
Given the markets and me mostly focusing on saving Hive as opposed to spending it on "unnecessary" things I only went with 4 packs this time. The real thing is really expensive, even though these were some of the latest editions they were still quite pricey. I'll include some pics I took with my phone in the hotel room where I opened them but after that I had the idea to take some pics with @hiddenblade's camera and on top of that also use a macrolens since I thought the quality of the images in the cards was just top notch. I'm sure you'll agree once you see them.
Either way, here they are still unopened:
We got 2 Fusion Strike packs, 1 Astral Radiance and 1 Scarlet & Violet Edition. I quickly googled and realized there could be a Mew in the Fusion Strike ones, hence I bought two of those even though they were a bit more expensive, but I really wanted that Mew from real cards this time. Let's see if I got lucky!
PS! These pics will be unedited as a fair warning.
1 Fusion Strike opened!
Quite a mix of cards as you usually expect with a few "utility" cards and a code card to claim the cards in the online Pokemon TCG game. This one was a bit unique as the Miraidon Card came twice but they were slightly different. One only has the image as "shiny" whereas the other has both the image and the whole card in this different pattern with a shine on it as well:
Not easy to see the shine in pictures but this is when the idea struck me that I should probably just use her camera instead for the shots. We were about to leave Bangkok, though, so I waited until we were back home for proper lighting (mix of sunlight and room light) to do it, and I think it was definitely worth the wait. Here are some macro shots of some of the other cards in no particular order except for the rarest one last. I have left some cards out as well as I'm a noob and they became quite blurry.
Some close-ups of Miraidon.
I was still experimenting a little bit and struggling with the focus as it mostly placed it in a certain line in the middle of the shot or so. @hiddenblade later made me realize you could change the focus to encapture a larger part of the picture, dohh. :D
I really liked the edges of this card, here's a zoomed in snip of the previous pic to explain what I mean, the colors were pretty cool and texture and quality of the printer:
This was a shiny card I tried to turn a bit towards the light, kind of hard to capture it properly and wasn't too happy with the outcome but looks alright I guess, although didn't take more of this "method".
The text part of this card, big fan of how crisp and exact the text is.
This one I took while I was still struggling with the focus, had quite vibrant and nice colors in this one.
Same with this one, I think the reason might be that it focuses a lot on the middle part instead of a general focus on the whole area but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there, I'm such a noob at photography.
It's Meowth!
Unfortunately one of the packs had either been mishandled on its way to the store or somewhere in the logistics someone had put too much weight somewhere to cause these weird lines. You can't really see them when taking a pic right in front of them but if you look from the side the light shows them pretty well. Unfortunate cause had I gotten something really rare the grading would've been garbage had I wanted to save it.
Getting a bit better with the focus here I think!
Not a big fan of the artwork of this Growlithe, feel like the colors could've stood out a bit more or that it was a little too bright. It's such a nice colored Pokemon so they could've put a bit more tone towards that, it's body had a great orange color as well that I decided to take a shot of too:
This artwork I really am not much of a fan of as it seems a bit too computer generated rather than anime-drawn, although I realize most may be computer generated either way. It's probably cause the outlines are too slim if not completely gone:
Same with this, here it's like they didn't even bother to make it look "anime" and same goes for the background. Not a big fan of these personally.
Weird patterns if you look closely:
This one was probably one of my fav shots, the colors look really great and the focus came out alright.
It's Muk!
I noticed that with Muk and some other cards they were using those same circular patterns when you look really close as the computer-generated-looking one above that I mentioned.
Same pattern here but looks a bit more anime-ish:
Here the focus turned out great, you can tell that from packs to packs and some times even cards to cards some part of the process gets a bit sloppier. For instance the text ink in this one:
This trainer card looked pretty neat and here they hadn't used those circular pattern prints which I liked. Oh and it's the same Pokemon as above but this time in anime-drawing style. Looks so much better in my opinion!
This one was one of my favorites too due to the drawing style. If the background isn't as handdrawn/anime-style I don't mind it as they fit well together.
One of the back!
Lastly, the rarest one I got, a VMAX of a Pokemon I have never seen before. xD
The patterns in this one were crazy, though, along with the shine and reflection giving out all sort of colors. Really impressed with the quality of this one and thankfully it wasn't in the pack with those two weird lines in the middle of all cards. Could probably get a decent grade if I were to grade and sell it, I checked online and this one was selling for around $36 so almost got me back to break-even this card alone if I were to sell it. :D
Anyway, that was it, there were a few others I didn't include as they got very blurry, etc, there's usually 10 cards per pack so I should have about 40. I may order some more packs in the future, maybe when markets are greener, but for now enough of this nerdy side from me. :D
Let me know what you think of the shots and macro-photography of these cards, I thought the idea was kinda cool but definitely have a lot left to learn with it and maybe even try to edit things a bit in the future for a cleaner look. So much things to learn, so little time!
Thanks for reading & looking! ^^
I must admit, I'm not skilled at handling a camera, so my comments on photography may not hold much weight. But hey, they look good to me, at least 😂
Your post evokes a flood of memories for me! Pokémon TCG was my first love and the main reason I got into playing Splinterlands. I recall pestering my parents for extra pocket money and even skipping meals at school just to save up the allowance I received, all so I could buy more Booster Packs 🙃
Here's hoping you'll get that
MEWnext time! You might even be able to change your display picture with the brand new card then 😅Aww haha, I was fortunate/unfortunate that during my school years in Finland they'd mostly sell these other cards that weren't for "playing" like these are, so I never really got into collecting the ones that'd actually be worth anything later on. I'm sure I wouldn't have saved them properly over time anyway, though.
I remember drawing them back in the day and exchanging some drawings for some of those cards from other kids. xD
That's a pretty legit way of doing "business" as well, after all it is a TRADING card game 🤣
Hope to maybe share some of my collection the next time round since you inspired me with this post!
Gotta start digging some of those old photos 😅
Do it! Giving you a follow so I'll maybe notice it in my feed, but feel free to tag me in it as well!
Wow, it's a tremendous honor to have you as a follower! Thank you so much!
Now the pressure is on for me to locate those photos, so I can share them with you. Hahaha, the stakes are high! 🤣
xd no pressure lol
I just notice the Trading Cards Community you posted in, didn't know that existed!
Giving them a follow right now as I'm always interested in TCGs 😊
After Pokemon, I got into WWE as well 😅
Do you also have other card games that you're interested in?
Yeah, that's just classic quality control from The Pokemon Center. Factory damage and errors are way more common these days than you'd ever think. From miscut cards, to dented/scratched cards and roller marks, to all kinds of weird errors like upside down backs or holo shifting, they fuck up all the time these days.
Wasn't there a whole drama about workers stealing rare cards as well recently? :/
Yeah, it started with a picture floating around from a card shop where someone tried to sell them like tens of thousands of secret rare cards from the Fusion Strike set you opened here. The pull rates are brutal in Fusion Strike for the really high end cards, so there's literally 0 chance this person could have pulled all the cards. TPC intercepted the cards and took them back, nothing ever shared with what happened with the person trying to sell.
Then another picture surfaced with a similar thing, but it ended up being from 2 or 3 years ago and was already kind of old news that was dealt with. TPC is saying this person stealing cards didn't affect pull rates, but that's very hard to believe when the person had such a huge amount of cards and they provide no evidence/proof to the contrary, while keeping all of the printing process super hush-hush. Definitely a bad look for Pokemon Center.
lol how the fuck does that even happen, don't they have cameras everywhere? ugh.
I'm pretty sure they do, but I'm assuming people have learned ways to get around them like blind spots where they can just slowly pocket shit. It's pretty clear whatever they have in place doesn't work as intended for their anti theft/security. I bet you this guy had been squirreling away cards every shift for months or even a year before he finally tried to move them all. It's honestly really fucked, because had the guy been smart and slowly sold the cards he would have probably never been caught. There's certainly more than just this one guy doing it too, so who knows how much shit has been stolen off the line.
Yeah think I read about that, which begs the question how many smarter people have been doing what he did way before and all along. They're probably mad some dumbass did it as well and put their "business" into jeapardy. xD
Yeahhh, I don't imagine bringing attention to their little theft ring would make anyone happy. But, considering the volume that guy had stolen I'm sure that guy is either long gone or facing jail time privately (It was literally around 1-1.5 million dollars worth of cards because they were all the high rarity hits) But, we'll never know what's going on behind the scenes with that anymore and how bad the theft issue really is.
It's all good though, because while we can't feast off that drama the Pokemon market is already super fucked up with manipulation and shops/content creators and sellers scalping all the time, so there's plenty of other sketchy shit to enjoy.
I still remember the time I got a dragonite card in the pokemon movie I saw, years ago, it was the movie that mewtwo and mew appeared in 1998 and today I have no idea where it is, unfortunately I threw it away or it went to the trash.... what a regret.
It could be a physical memory of an incredible moment, at that time it was the fever of the moment. Good times that never come back.
!LUV
@acidyo, @shiftrox(3/4) sent you LUV. | discord | community | HiveWiki | NFT | <>< daily
! help(no space) to get help on Hive. InfoThat first movie is quite special, I remember re-watching it when I got older and it's still pretty good. The others I don't think I've watched, maybe the second one but it got pretty dull quick, same with the anime.
Looking here on the internet, I saw Pokémon The Movie 2000 which was Lugia's, I always loved Lugia was one of my favorites and the movie Pokémon 3: The Movie in which the Entei, after these I don't think I saw any more, I really don't remember.
I saw here now that there are sooooo many movies, damn.
Seeing all these booster packs and physical cards is making me nostalgic as hell! I played only during the original 150 but man, the obsession was real! Every day battling and trying to complete the collection. Good times!
Haha, yeah I was really into the gameboy games for the first couple generations, after that I kinda got interested in other things. :D
I can’t remember how many times I beat Pokémon Blue on the original game boy lol
I had blue as well :D
Looks like a decent haul. I never got much into trading cards besides my sports ones. Until Splinterlands and then WAX came along. I have a ton of digital collectibles now. I've thought about buying some MTG packs, but I just haven't gotten around to it.
Haha yeah compared to my nft collection this is barely anything. Let's see how long until people realize why digital is better, even though for some things physical cards are pretty nice too.
I hear you. Even though I own a ton of NFTs, I am still not totally sold on them being the answer to every question like some people think they are.
That’s a really good pull! I’ve been striking out lately and taking a break. I really love those trainer gallery cards.
Btw here is the new card on the 151 set that is currently released in Japan. The English version is coming out in the fall I believe.
Haha looks interesting. I've been checking some collection guides and might order some elite trainer boxes and maybe some more booster packs, but feels a bit risky as reviews are often mixed saying they receive boxes that look like they've already been opened and meddled with. So dunno, maybe I'll just stick with packs from stores but that elite box seems nice as it gives you things for collecting like sleeves, etc.
God i feel old, it been a while since i have seen Pokémon cards, surprised the packs are still purchasable without it costing a kidney.
Still some nice finds there
I think these shots are very good. The only problem is those ridiculous lines, they're quite annoying. I hope that won't happen next time. I've never heard of the Vmax pokemon, but as you said, it says it can be sold up to 40 dollars. Congratulations.
Although I loved pokemon in its beginnings, I never bought packs, I am aware of how expensive some cards can be, I like magic the gathering, I know that there are old packs that are very expensive, I am curious to know how much each of them cost, yes it is possible to know clearly hehe
The photographs are great; I loved them. I was grown up when Pokemon cards were popular. So they didn't catch my attention. I am playing Splinterlands now, and I started to admire the card staff.
These look amazing! When did you first start collecting?
This really :D
I thinks the most expensive one is a pikachu card with a price of 6.000.000 😂
must be super rare, lol.
Awwwwww.
Now buy a few more and put a permanent crease before opening. And hope that you don't pull a Fat golden pikachu.
That doesn't sound like something anyone would wanna do. :p
Suffer
lmao
Wow, my child's favorite! This is really her dream to have these cards however, we cannot afford these. And besides, these are rare in our country.