i've had a few pokemon cards since childhood. my mom opened a few packs from the late 90s and when she lost interest in them she gave them to me.
i started seriously collecting pokemon cards in april 2024. i had looked at card art before and thought about how cool it was, but i never saw the appeal of spending money on them and owning them physically; now i do because i have a weakness for shiny things and cool art.
collecting shiny cardboard has unironically gotten me to go outside more and meet people. i previously wasn't planning on playing the actual game but my partner got me into it by introducing me to the gym leader challenge format. i have a weird water deck that i haven't won with once but i swear one of these days i will. also pokemon players in my experience are extremely chill and cool people!
as much as i love this hobby. i don't recommend it for everyone. for starters you need to have some source of income, and you need to pace yourself. personally the way i do this is that i never buy any card that is worth more than $20 apiece, and my partner and i try to avoid buying a ton of packs because after a certain point if you are opening multiple of them hoping to get a specific card you will be disappointed. scalping and unscrupulous sellers are a serious issue as well, especially if a popular pokemon like pikachu or eevee is the set mascot (this is why nobody can afford prismatic evolutions) and the pokemon company never seems to be able to anticipate the kind of demand that the first 151 pokemon bring.
i have over 1200 cards from base set all the way to the latest. i don't buy everything that has my favorite pokemon on it but it will
my favorite cards that i currently have on display, from newest to oldest: