Pokémon cards: can’t get rid of them!

By Linda – When I was young I used to collect Pokémon cards. At 33 years old I still feel young, but I mean when I was really young. I was about 15 years old when Pokémon cards became a craze.

Winning Pokémon Cards

In particular, we were throwing Pokémon cards. Whoever had his card closest to the wall won. We did the same with flippo’s: also very hip in those days.
We did not throw the best cards: we threw for example the Energy cards, which nobody liked and everybody had a lot of. And who won, won that beautiful card with it.

We did swap too, but a lot less. Especially since we didn’t really save the cards, but just liked to play with them. We saved the nicest cards, but nothing else.

Pokémon Players Cup

Now, 18 years later, the flippo’s are long gone. But those Pokémon cards, they are here to stay! Because Pokémon cards are still incredibly popular. To save but also to play a game: the Pokémon Trading Card Game even has real world tournaments!

Pokémon Professors and referees exist.
In July 2020 there will be worldwide competition in the Pokémon Players Cup. This as an alternative to the normal tournaments, which cannot go on now because of the Corona virus.

Saving Pokémon cards

Daan and Jesse have also been under the spell of Pokémon cards since they were seven years old. At that age, there was a lot of ‘clapping’ with the cards at school. Two kids choose a card to compete for. Then you hold them in your hand and clap your hands together. The cards fall to the ground.

The card that falls face up wins. If they are both on the front or back, they have to clap again.

But of course this clapping with cards is disastrous for the cards: they come out damaged. But then again, when you’re seven you’re mostly into the game of course and not a scratch here or there.

Daan and Jesse are now ten years old and since a few weeks there has been a change: new Pokémon cards suddenly have to be put in a sleeve and the cards suddenly go from bins neatly into collectible folders.

Save by set

We even learned something new, because it turns out: you can save Pokémon cards on set. So we had never seen that. I always thought it was about collecting all the Pokémon on a card just once. Each Pokémon in fact has its own ‘Pokedex number’.

But what turned out: the real collectors don’t look at that at all. Those collect on sets!

Well, that’s what Daan and Jesse wanted too. So we sorted all (I estimate over 1500!) cards on set. From one set we had 200 cards, from another set only 2 or none at all.

There also turned out to be over 150 sets, starting from 1995.

Of all the sets, we chose three to really start saving. Two sets of 70 cards each and 1 set of 192 cards. The two sets of 70 cards are old sets that are now no longer for sale in the stores. So those are a little trickier to get together, but that’s also a fun challenge.

Maybe we can visit a swap meet for that sometime, that seems like fun too!

I wonder: does your child also collect Pokémon cards?

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