Collecting Suggestions for a (Returning) Newbie

[logantrky]

Hello! I am looking to return to the hobby after 19 years of being away (I know, I'm old ).

I collected the original base set when I was a kid and I'm feeling nostalgic about Pokemon again. I've considered starting a nice graded older set and an ungraded newer set. I just feel a bit overwhelmed on where to start. I won't be playing in tournaments; mainly just collecting.

So my question is this: If you were starting over, which generation of cards would you begin with? I don't really want to spend more than about 00 per card or box. I'd like to maybe begin a nicer older set and a newer set as well.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[FrostBiter12]

Hello! I am looking to return to the hobby after 19 years of being away (I know, I'm old ).

I collected the original base set when I was a kid and I'm feeling nostalgic about Pokemon again. I've considered starting a nice graded older set and an ungraded newer set. I just feel a bit overwhelmed on where to start. I won't be playing in tournaments; mainly just collecting.

So my question is this: If you were starting over, which generation of cards would you begin with? I don't really want to spend more than about 00 per card or box. I'd like to maybe begin a nicer older set and a newer set as well.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Hey @logantrky!

Welcome, to Pokebeach! I'm not much of a collector myself, but if I had to choose where to start, I would go with the SUM series first. If you wanted a specific set from that series, go with Pokémon TCG: Sun & Moon - Guardians Rising. It contains three different art styles of Tapu Lele GX, an expensive card that can reach up to $65.19 (using TCGPlayer.com) with the rarest art style. Once you've accumulated some of them, you can trade a few away (as long as you have a local league to do so) to get more cards from different sets. Afterwards, I suggest you begin from the bottom up and collect cards from the base SUM set and then move on forward (obviously skipping GRI since you already began from that). The one downside of the SUM series is that Pokémon is constantly creating expensive cards in these sets, so they are sometimes really hard to collect. Other than that, if you ever get an urge to play competitively, SUM is the newest series and is legal for Standard play in tournaments.

As for older sets, I'm not sure what to recommend for them, though I know cards like Computer Search (in BLW-Boundaries Crossed) and SR Ultra Ball (in BLW-Plasma Freeze) are highly prized. They might be good places to start I suppose, but you should probably get someone else's opinion on this matter, I'm not very familiar with the collecting part of Pokémon TCG when it comes to older cards.

Anyways, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know and I would be happy to answer them,

Hope this helps!
~FrostBiter12