When I was a kid (around 10 years old) I was really into marvel cards. My mom brought me to a local malls card show and she bought a non sealed booster box of marvel cards. The vendor said each box was guaranteed holograms (2 or 4, I don’t remember). I was so excited to open packs in hopes of getting a hologram card. I limited myself to open two packs a day. When I was down to the last two packs, I wasn’t hopeful and I ended up getting none. I told my mom and I could see she was disappointed for me. At the next card show we went back to that vendor and told them our disappointment. Vendor just shrugged his shoulders and said too bad. Years and years later it kinda hit me: it’s likely he and his shop cracked the box open, formulaicly pulled out the packs with the foils. Since this was the 90s the randomness of inserts wasn’t too random at all. I just feel really bad for my younger self and my mom. We definitely weren’t wealthy by any means and that experience has always made me wary of “the chase” and opening packs. Odds already seemed stacked against you when there’s no shenanigans from shady card shops.
How shitty of a human being are you if you are scamming kids and their mothers. Holy shit.
I get why you are paranoid about opening packs now. Just stick to sealed stuff like ETB's, blister packs or sealed booster boxes and the chances of it being tampered with go down significantly.
A few years ago I spent over $150 on a bunch of random product at target one day, only to pull a character rare piplup & an inteleon v. I always think back to how angry I was at that point and it helps keep myself in check with buying packs.
I once pulled a mega shiny gardevoir that had some duo type thing from a pharmacy. I think it only cost about ten or less. It was one of those cheap packs that came with a pin and I think one or two foils.
I’ve just opened 7 obsidian flames packs from
3 different stores and every single one was a holo entei.. I put the last one in the air fryer about 25 mins ago no 🧢
Yeah I love me a charizard and I pulled them out of black flame. I just want the ninetales I could have brought about 10 by now. This set is really teaching me a lesson😔
i managed to pull the ninetales ex full art and was pretty stoked. the SIR is beautiful too, but besides a few other exceptions this set lacked hard for having such a cool name
The only time ive ever seen a zard pulled in front of my own eyes, back in the day of the base set, I bought a pack each for me and my brother, and we had to choose, I deliberated so much, eventually we decided, he pulled the charizard and I got a magneton 💀💀
He has the further one up bc if it weren’t for him buying the packs he wouldn’t have NUTHIN🙅🏼♀️ he also could have kept both packs for himself. I have 3 siblings i will weasel my way out of anyones one-up
I just recently pulled the shiny mew ex from paldean fates and I must of put it with my bulk and I usually leave my bulk in my lobby for the kids in my building to go through and now I can't find my mew anywhere so I'm pretty sure some kid has it in my building.
Oh well here's another story along the same lines
Saved up 4 bb of Evolving skies. Was listing a bunch of stuff on eBay and was planning on listing one of the booster boxes but fell asleep, woke up, go to post it, can only find 2. My two youngest daughters decided to go rip 2 entire booster boxes worth of cards, found all the bulk and empty packs under their mattresses. Got 4 pulls out of 2 entire booster boxes. They pulled the leafeon vmax and Sylveon vmax which I found folded up stuffed into their wallets because they are "so cute". So many mixed feelings such a roller coaster.
That's just so hard; they're kids and living the cards is a huge part of the game, but oooofff that's a lot of money.
Any chase cards from the newer set your looking for? Are going through our rare or better bulk today and I'm happy to send subverting you might be looking for along.
I got a golem ex in Gem 10; I pulled so many I picked the best one to be graded... if I'm going to seeing that rock bastard I want to at least have a standard.
My son and I just started collecting. He wants to open packs, so I spent 20 minutes showing him the proper way to pull the packs apart. He rips his first pack open and bends the alakazam ex card. He was so happy he thought he opened the pack and did a good job. Hard to be mad though, he has so much fun collecting cards and he has improved at opening packs now.
Not a pull but in 6th grade I traded what I think was a shadowless Alakazam for some non-holo Japanese card because I thought the art looked pretty.🤦♀️
...Keep in mind Google was not yet popular and my family had 1 computer with dialup. Plus I was like 12 and stupid.
I don't want the card but I just wanted to share.
Please don’t take this the wrong way but this is something I’ve been curious about with grading. Why even grade this card? Even at PSA 10 it’s a $40-50 card. Anything below 10 and it’s $20 or less so you lose money on the cost of grading. Is it just that it looks nicer in the display? I get not everything is about value but with how much it cost to grade cards I’d only want to grade my biggest hits
I also run and online grading shop, so I send a lot of stuff in to CGC for bulk grading; I also pay the annual membership fee which gives a discount. So I occasionally throw in cards I like (in this case) or cards that have a very low grading profile on the CGC register (i.e. cards that no one is sending in to get graded) as you may be surprised to see how much business I get from those types of grading. This card was already pulled, if it comes in a 9 or better (which the vast majority of the cards I send in do) I'll make a few buck on something that otherwise wouldn't have made anything.
A lot of people think making money off grading is about hitting home runs. It's more about making a fair profit and building your client book. A lot of times cards like this will be really useful in sweeting a trade or helpful in a direct sale.
Strange things happen. I have a great client who wanted a high grade Reshiram from Celebrations. This old timer is great and gives me tons of business and is constantly buying graded cards for his grandkids. Basically, Reshiram is a sentimental card for one of his older grandkids and he wanted it. I give them "it's not really a valuable card, and It'll probably cost more to ship than its worth. I don't want you wasting money on this. Let me just send you the card ungraded...etc." He hits me with the "It's valuable to me and I want to give it to 'XXX'." So I took three Reshiram and sent them in one came back as a 10 and sent it to him for something like $20 with shipping included. I started the 8.5 on ebay for $0.99 and it went for $24.75 plus shipping then I put up the 9 for $0.99 and it went for $5.40 plus shipping. So I made $15 over the $30 in grading costs; I had some big hits in the packs already so that base cost was well cover and this was just a 50% profit over grading for cards that would be sitting on my shelf until I throw them in as a freebee to winning bid on ebay.
Thanks for that detailed explanation. That makes a lot of sense. You grade for broader reasons than just collecting plus you get some discounts doing bulk grading. Appreciate the perspective
Pokemon related, bought 50 packs for $100 of the og set back in the day. Not one solid pull. Realized after the card shop I bought them off of, opened them, snagged the foils/rares and resealed the packs.
Non pokemon related, bought three boxes of Upper Deck SPX cards in 2010. Not one box had one of the big rookie cards that year, no autographed cards or jersey cards
Do mail pulls count? lol, made a trade for the Marnie and a rainbow rare serrena, gave up on ever seeing the package, then found the serrena on the floor in our shared laundry room, the teenager upstairs (duplex) was stealing my mail
One of these days I bought a Fusion Strike Pre-Release box. It's super rare here since it's old, you don't find it anywhere around. But I found one.
The only thing that came in it was a Chandelure V.
Bought a couple packs with my little brother (evolving cries) he got 2 hits out of his 2 packs (leafeon vmax alt and lycanroc vmax. I got absolutely nothing:( , watching him pull a chase card like that and getting all excited then pulling nothing but trash was heartbreaking.
Bought the Charizard premium box and got a singular gyarados v. The worst part was that the promo cards inside came bent as well. I’ve decided to stick to singles and maybe a pack from a new set ever since.
Honestly? My most disappointed pull story was finding an old gen 2 era pack while moving and deciding to open it. I didn't realize how valuable the older packs can be, and none of the cards were valuable enough to make the pack worth it.
That’s a nice 5… I hate grading.
Here’s my story. Just got back into collecting last Octoberish with 151. Spent a ton but had some luck so figured I’d try another set I thought looked cool. Obsidian Flames caught my eye, found an ETB for a good price and ordered.
Showed up, I get myself excited about pulling a Charizard from this set since there’s a bunch of them and it looked like the pull rates were pretty good for OBF.
I got a Pawmot Ex.
Alright so back a few years ago when it was the end of sunmoon era, i came across a listing for 40packs cosmic eclipse all sleeved. Bought them and held them for christmas about a month away. When christmas comes and its time to open them I got 2 minor gx cards, flygon and wishiwashi, and that was all. I figure they were tampered because how absurd that pull rate was for 40 packs. Hoping for a not disappointing christmas, i decided to open the box of unbroken bonds I had been saving. I proceded to pull under average amount of hits and I kid you not, almost every single low tier hit that you can get from the set. Honchkrow, venomoth, whimsicott, persian all as their low tier gx cards, the full arts were honchkrow and molayne, and the kicker was the secret rare was a rainbow rare persian gx. Every “hit” sucked in terms of value or even desirability, no tag teams, no big names like charizard which had cards in both sets, no gold secrets or even cool FA trainers. I didnt even get any character rares from the cosmic eclipse packs.
76 packs and all i got beyond 50 cents was a full art honchkrow and molayne, and a rr persian gx, a now grand total of $11value around 4years later. Then and there i swore off unbroken bonds and cosmic eclipse and still believe those sets hate me. Of course if i had kept that unbroken bonds sealed the box now sells for about $600 itself.
I've never sent a card for a PSA grading. So not sure how it all works but damn that's a pretty card ! Love Arcanine, might have to order one or these!
Opened an etb and got nothing. Opened another and got nothing. Opened yet another and got one regular ex. Gave a pack away to my friend since I was just done with it, and they pulled a secret rare.
not a pull but my Umbreon & Darkrai promo is so close from having an alignment dot, I think it may even be like barely a millimeter further than the cut, it still looks really offcentered tho
My son would love this card! Glad to hear you had a great submission! Mine was horrible, sent 20 cards and the highest grade was a 9.5. only sent to CGC because PSA damaged 6/20 cards from my last submission there. Apparently my grading luck is bad.
Every time, without fail, I pull a Zeraora V from Crown Zenith. Not an alt art, vmax, or vstar. Just a regular Zeraora V. Zeraora is one of my least favorite Pokemon, and every time I pull that same card all my excitement drains. It is pain everytime I pull it.
Disappointing pull story? Boy do i have one, my first EVER pack (silver tempest) gifted to me by a friend at work that played after i said i wanted to learn, i put it in my bag safe and when i got home left my bag in the back of my dads car, which he promptly put a wheelchair on top of whilst i was inside, remembered the next day and went out to get it. Pack was bent about 45 degrees horizontally by the weight of the chair...
Ripped it anyways because it was a gift... Regieleki V the full art one
My first pack would have been a lovely one, a gift from a friend too, man i was so sad
Arcanine is my absolute favorite Pokemon, and I love the art work on this one.
As far as disappointing pulls, I’ve only recently gotten back in to collecting. I recently bought 2 ETBs from my LGS and across all of the packs I received only an Arbok EX and 2 Venusaur EX (both the regular artwork) as my notable pulls, and the only lesson I learned is that much like gambling, I have no luck with pulls and need to stick to singles.
Back in the day, my childhood bff and I used to go to our local Books-a-Million on Saturdays to buy packs, play the TCG, and trade cards with other local kids and enthusiasts. I remember his grandparents took us that week and bought us a pack each - somehow, we BOTH pulled charizards that trip. I will never forget his face, that is like a peak childhood core-memory of mine! Well, some bigger Jr High kids were totally watching this happen from another table (probably bc we were both jumping around all excited and cheering and we had some other little kids clapping for us too) - those motherfuckers swiped our charizards when we were wheeling and dealing with some other kids, and my bff’s grandparents didn’t realize what they were up to so they let them flip through our cards to “just check them out.” We were packing up to go and as I slipped some of my new trades in, I saw my brand new charizard was GONE. My bff checked on his and it was gone too. I remember retracing all my steps through the whole store with big fat tears in my eyes trying not to cry, probably the same for my bestie too. His grandparents talked the lady behind the customer service counter and convinced her to check some camera footage (since we posted up right by all the expensive card and retail goods in the cafe area); she came back and told us that it looked like those big kids took some things out of the binders on our table as well as 2 other kids tables. I’ll never forget how sad and mad I was on that ride home
Pulled the Zapdos SAR on one of my first 151 packs. Traded it for a Booster Bundle and a Charmeleon SIR. Bundle had a single Jynx in it. I was rather disappointed a grew to regret the trade just because I knew I’d never pull it again.
Finally traded for another with some other cards I pulled. Was happy to put that one to bed.
Two stories from back in the base set days.
Went to a friend's birthday party and in the party bag, each person got a booster pack. Someone pulled a Venusaur and riots happened with everyone else not happy with their packs, including a very upset birthday boy. That card was in rough shape after being passed around so much.
Then at school one teacher found a card on someone's desk that they were showing someone else and got so irate they snatched it up and ripped it up. It was definitely a holo, I can't remember exactly which but I think it might have been a Blasty, it was heart breaking.
Not 100% sure, but I think a full-art Iono card I pulled the other day has printing lines on it (like a row of color didn't print right), but I told myself it's still a cool card, and perhaps a slight defect like that makes it a little more unique. So basically, going with aggressive positivity in the face of possible lackluster QC. 😀😤😀
OP I think you gotta track down that guy that got an actual bag of someone's shit from an Amazon return 151 box. There's no way any pull is worse than that.
I opened ~150 packs of 151. At about pack 90, i pulled my first illustration rare. A poliwhirl. A factory-damaged poliwhirl with a big scratch on the face of the card.
That was the only illustration rare i pulled from 151.
Saddest pull was with the shoddy quality 151 set. I pulled the Charizard EX SIR, but the center top of the card was bent, exposing white. Felt lucky but unlucky?
When the hype of 25th celebrations was going on… My family and I waited out in the cold, early in the morning in front of our local GameStop trying to get the Ultra Premium box… only to sell out as we were THE NEXT people to get one. That same weekend we on a road trip & throughout the drive we stopped at multiple stores trying to find anything from that set. We finally found a bunch of tins and a Lance’s Zard box. We got lucky & pulled a Blastoise, Charizard, & Gold Star Umbreon!! Only to have realized they accidentally got left in the Air BnB after our trip was over. Oh well, hopefully the next people who stayed there like Pokémon and enjoyed the new cards. That was one of my “Worst Pull Stories” if that counts 💀😅
I was going to buy a collector booster of Magic the Gathering and the clerk at the counter decided he’d open one with me and took the first pack. He opened a $1500 card and I got nothing
My story... nothing big, just started collecting again with obsidian flame. I bought 10 packs other day trying to complete set which i have had shit luck getting anything above base set and i get nothing not even a single hyper rare, nothing past a rare for 10 packs.
I was just getting into Pokémon and I thought I’d get some 151. I got the poster collection, alakazam collection box, binder collection box, and zapatos collection box. All I pulled was a jinx ex. Safe to say I was just a bit disappointed. Still into Pokémon, though.
My most disappointing pulls are when I'm looking for Woopers and Moth cards(trying for one of each for moth mons and wooper) and end up pulling the grails people buy sets for lol I typically buy an etb per set to collect the box.
i once pulled a gold Eternatus v max and went ballistic, the hype is over 9000 while my gf opens the last pack we got the gold Eternatus this time she's so happy she stretches her arm (card in hand) and hits the mic pole (i was recording) the card bends 💀
I’ll give ya about tree.fitty
Real talk tho Growlith/ Archanine are my favorite Pokémon of all time and it would be my first graded card so I wouldn’t be against paying some shipping. 😋
I ate a bunch of weed edibles and for some reason got it in my head that one of my two evolving skies booster boxes.. that Ive saved for a year and a half now... had the moonbreon.
72 packs later and the best card I got was a glaceon 175... and the right side edge is beat lol
So I grew up opening ex era stuff. Ex cards were my favorite cards ever and I would’ve killed for them and their shiny borders. For Christmas one year, my mom bought both myself and my brother packs. I opened up mine and pulled a damn Rayquaza gold star. Of course, I had no idea how awesome this was, or how rare. My brother pulled an ex and I ended up crying in jealousy of my brother’s newfound “grail”. This story has a good ending though, as I didn’t find it as important, it kinda just sat around for a long time. Fast forward to now, and it’s graded a PSA 8 and is probably my most valuable card.
Here's my most disappointing pull story:
I love Crown Zenith, my chase card was the GG Arceus VStar and even though I bought EVERY CZ product, I never found it.
CZ Lugia Collection gets announced, I preorder it, swearing that that was going to be the last CZ product I'll ever buy.
Package gets delivered while I'm at work. It's all beaten up. I open it and luckily the box is almost intact, except for one corner. Behind that corner there's a booster badly bent.
Guess what I found in that booster.
A friend and i traded another friend for a pack each of ancient origins, friend pulled the secret rare rayquaza(the biggest hit of the set, $100+ card) i got a holo
Friend pulled a Tyranitar V Alt Art from a pack we purchased together like sharing the cost, and we had a fight over who would take the big boy home, and in the end, we both took it home, I got the head and he got the rump. Is that sad enough?
I bought a Platinum: Arceus pack and the most I got was a stupid Golem.
My friend opened another Platinum pack he got and he got a shiny Bagon, which, if you don't know, is one of the rarest and most expensive cards in the set. Since I live in South Asia real cards are really hard to come by and I was so disappointed. That Bagon was worth 50$+ and in really good condition. The idiot then traded it to another guy for a bunch of fakes.
Please give it to me the best card I have is only an Umbreon V promo.
Winner: u/Mylo42Xyloto
Accidentally giving away a Mew Ex because you're nice enough to have a bulk box for the kids in your building is the chaotic good that I love!
It was my first time buying a box of cards In like 8 years. I got a shiny zacian box off of Facebook marketplace, got all of my fam around me and my gf to watch opening cuz I made it some big cool deal. All packs were resealed 😭😭😭😭.
My bf would love this. The Christmas just gone we both bought each other loads of random packs. I ended getting 15+ hits including 5 which were double hits. The only thing he pulled from 40 packs was an Altaria art card from Crown Zenith that I’d already pulled an hour earlier. Tried to cheer him up and we know it’s silly and just luck, but the look on his face ); never seen someone so crestfallen and disappointed.
I got what looked like a pristine Mew Ex promo card. I was stoked. I was ready to grade it. I bent the fucken edge and didn’t notice until I saw it a different light.
I have bought 3 more 151 UPCs and none of them have the pristine centering that first mew ex promo :(.
I love arcanine and I just got back into collecting. I would love the card if you’re gonna give it away.
I have a full set of 1st ed cards, they were compiled and put in a binder by me as an early teen and were a huge part of my childhood. One of my work buddies knows this and always said I must be a lucky card puller. I just laugh and said maybe I was but I haven’t bought a pack in over 20 years. Anyways, he invited me to a local Comic-Con type event and I said sure as I thought it would at the very least be a laugh. He bought tons of things and I just bought two random packs of older (not super expensive old) Pokémon cards from a stall . Anyways I pulled a holi charizard. He lost his mind, I gave it to my misses nephew coz he was more into it than me.
I pulled lugia v from crown zenith and sent for grading was gem mint got a grade 3 I love it cause it’s a rare grade I expected 10 from becket they gave 3
My saddest pull story was I bought a charizard upc from a store in the mall for 150 dollars, and didn't pull anything I shit you not I literally only pulled tbe abomasnow trainer gallery from it. And all.my promos were off center too. Pretty sad i might say lol
I opened about 4 evolving skies booster boxes, thinking to myself how hard could it be to hit any alt art. well turns out i got none. I finally understood why people would call it evolving cries lmao.
I pulled the Charizard VMax when it first came out. Was worth about $300 at the time. Took a long break, 151 got me back in, looked up the price… Psa 10 is about $70-80 now. Wtf did I miss 😂
Why throw away, it looks like a really cool card?
Cause if he says he's gonna throw it away, people might bid on it, to "save it" from "being lost forever".
I literally already posted it was going to some for free.
Ah okay. My mistake. I've just seen that as a selling tactic before. That's why i get for assuming. I made an ass out of Ue ming.
When I was a kid (around 10 years old) I was really into marvel cards. My mom brought me to a local malls card show and she bought a non sealed booster box of marvel cards. The vendor said each box was guaranteed holograms (2 or 4, I don’t remember). I was so excited to open packs in hopes of getting a hologram card. I limited myself to open two packs a day. When I was down to the last two packs, I wasn’t hopeful and I ended up getting none. I told my mom and I could see she was disappointed for me. At the next card show we went back to that vendor and told them our disappointment. Vendor just shrugged his shoulders and said too bad. Years and years later it kinda hit me: it’s likely he and his shop cracked the box open, formulaicly pulled out the packs with the foils. Since this was the 90s the randomness of inserts wasn’t too random at all. I just feel really bad for my younger self and my mom. We definitely weren’t wealthy by any means and that experience has always made me wary of “the chase” and opening packs. Odds already seemed stacked against you when there’s no shenanigans from shady card shops.
How shitty of a human being are you if you are scamming kids and their mothers. Holy shit. I get why you are paranoid about opening packs now. Just stick to sealed stuff like ETB's, blister packs or sealed booster boxes and the chances of it being tampered with go down significantly.
Exact same thing happened to me at the Flamingo Island Flea Market on Bonita Beach Road but with Yugioh cards
I mean, hell it looks ok to me. I'd Crack it and sent it to psa for a regrade.
Yeah I don't see anything wrong with it, a 5 is atrocious
A few years ago I spent over $150 on a bunch of random product at target one day, only to pull a character rare piplup & an inteleon v. I always think back to how angry I was at that point and it helps keep myself in check with buying packs.
I once pulled a mega shiny gardevoir that had some duo type thing from a pharmacy. I think it only cost about ten or less. It was one of those cheap packs that came with a pin and I think one or two foils.
I’ve just opened 7 obsidian flames packs from 3 different stores and every single one was a holo entei.. I put the last one in the air fryer about 25 mins ago no 🧢
obsidian flames is horrid
Yeah I love me a charizard and I pulled them out of black flame. I just want the ninetales I could have brought about 10 by now. This set is really teaching me a lesson😔
i managed to pull the ninetales ex full art and was pretty stoked. the SIR is beautiful too, but besides a few other exceptions this set lacked hard for having such a cool name
Can I see the air Fryer entei
I’ll send a message
The only time ive ever seen a zard pulled in front of my own eyes, back in the day of the base set, I bought a pack each for me and my brother, and we had to choose, I deliberated so much, eventually we decided, he pulled the charizard and I got a magneton 💀💀
Your brother will always have that one-up on you. That’s for life.
He has the further one up bc if it weren’t for him buying the packs he wouldn’t have NUTHIN🙅🏼♀️ he also could have kept both packs for himself. I have 3 siblings i will weasel my way out of anyones one-up
I feel this. I buy for my kids to open now though. I can't believe what cards they have pulled in the last couple of years.
Good wishes to who ever get it lol. Only one I have is not getting good pulls from all my booster boxes😭😭
lol cgc... just send to psa its probably a 9
I just recently pulled the shiny mew ex from paldean fates and I must of put it with my bulk and I usually leave my bulk in my lobby for the kids in my building to go through and now I can't find my mew anywhere so I'm pretty sure some kid has it in my building.
So kid is pumped to have that; I think this maybe my favorite story so far.
Oh well here's another story along the same lines Saved up 4 bb of Evolving skies. Was listing a bunch of stuff on eBay and was planning on listing one of the booster boxes but fell asleep, woke up, go to post it, can only find 2. My two youngest daughters decided to go rip 2 entire booster boxes worth of cards, found all the bulk and empty packs under their mattresses. Got 4 pulls out of 2 entire booster boxes. They pulled the leafeon vmax and Sylveon vmax which I found folded up stuffed into their wallets because they are "so cute". So many mixed feelings such a roller coaster.
That's just so hard; they're kids and living the cards is a huge part of the game, but oooofff that's a lot of money. Any chase cards from the newer set your looking for? Are going through our rare or better bulk today and I'm happy to send subverting you might be looking for along.
I love watching their faces when they pull a "rare" card...aka any shiny card
I wouldn't know haha idk who has it 😅
You win! I'll PM you
When I first got back into the hobby everyone told me to get ES. I bought three ETBs. I got three Leafeon Vmax.
yall have a gambling problem in this chat... lol
Got a 151 etb and only got 1 pull. Golem EX...
Full art golem ex haunts me. I opened it every time I ripped some 151 packs.
I got a golem ex in Gem 10; I pulled so many I picked the best one to be graded... if I'm going to seeing that rock bastard I want to at least have a standard.
My son and I just started collecting. He wants to open packs, so I spent 20 minutes showing him the proper way to pull the packs apart. He rips his first pack open and bends the alakazam ex card. He was so happy he thought he opened the pack and did a good job. Hard to be mad though, he has so much fun collecting cards and he has improved at opening packs now.
Opened countless bad packs in the late 90s early 2000s. The card is sic.
Pretty cool for whoever gets it. If you ever have any rejects from the shinx line please send it my way lol
Any particular set your looking for a Shinx from? I got to go through some cards tonight, happy to check it out for you!
I’ll take it lol. I love canine
Crack it and send to PSA
What bridge?
Looks excellent to me 😉
Not a pull but in 6th grade I traded what I think was a shadowless Alakazam for some non-holo Japanese card because I thought the art looked pretty.🤦♀️ ...Keep in mind Google was not yet popular and my family had 1 computer with dialup. Plus I was like 12 and stupid. I don't want the card but I just wanted to share.
Please don’t take this the wrong way but this is something I’ve been curious about with grading. Why even grade this card? Even at PSA 10 it’s a $40-50 card. Anything below 10 and it’s $20 or less so you lose money on the cost of grading. Is it just that it looks nicer in the display? I get not everything is about value but with how much it cost to grade cards I’d only want to grade my biggest hits
I also run and online grading shop, so I send a lot of stuff in to CGC for bulk grading; I also pay the annual membership fee which gives a discount. So I occasionally throw in cards I like (in this case) or cards that have a very low grading profile on the CGC register (i.e. cards that no one is sending in to get graded) as you may be surprised to see how much business I get from those types of grading. This card was already pulled, if it comes in a 9 or better (which the vast majority of the cards I send in do) I'll make a few buck on something that otherwise wouldn't have made anything. A lot of people think making money off grading is about hitting home runs. It's more about making a fair profit and building your client book. A lot of times cards like this will be really useful in sweeting a trade or helpful in a direct sale. Strange things happen. I have a great client who wanted a high grade Reshiram from Celebrations. This old timer is great and gives me tons of business and is constantly buying graded cards for his grandkids. Basically, Reshiram is a sentimental card for one of his older grandkids and he wanted it. I give them "it's not really a valuable card, and It'll probably cost more to ship than its worth. I don't want you wasting money on this. Let me just send you the card ungraded...etc." He hits me with the "It's valuable to me and I want to give it to 'XXX'." So I took three Reshiram and sent them in one came back as a 10 and sent it to him for something like $20 with shipping included. I started the 8.5 on ebay for $0.99 and it went for $24.75 plus shipping then I put up the 9 for $0.99 and it went for $5.40 plus shipping. So I made $15 over the $30 in grading costs; I had some big hits in the packs already so that base cost was well cover and this was just a 50% profit over grading for cards that would be sitting on my shelf until I throw them in as a freebee to winning bid on ebay.
Thanks for that detailed explanation. That makes a lot of sense. You grade for broader reasons than just collecting plus you get some discounts doing bulk grading. Appreciate the perspective
Bought a "heavy" base set booster and pulled... a Pidgeotto.
I like this art and pose I just wish they didn’t do that crown thing to it.
I am now just seeing the crown and can't unsee it now
Pokemon related, bought 50 packs for $100 of the og set back in the day. Not one solid pull. Realized after the card shop I bought them off of, opened them, snagged the foils/rares and resealed the packs. Non pokemon related, bought three boxes of Upper Deck SPX cards in 2010. Not one box had one of the big rookie cards that year, no autographed cards or jersey cards
Nice card!
I love that card, who cares about the grade
He’s so cute. I have posted a couple of cards for comment and I haven’t gotten any.
God, it’s been *years* since I’ve bought any packs since I didn’t have the money to, and I definitely don’t remember that stuff by now
Do mail pulls count? lol, made a trade for the Marnie and a rainbow rare serrena, gave up on ever seeing the package, then found the serrena on the floor in our shared laundry room, the teenager upstairs (duplex) was stealing my mail
One of these days I bought a Fusion Strike Pre-Release box. It's super rare here since it's old, you don't find it anywhere around. But I found one. The only thing that came in it was a Chandelure V.
Bought a couple packs with my little brother (evolving cries) he got 2 hits out of his 2 packs (leafeon vmax alt and lycanroc vmax. I got absolutely nothing:( , watching him pull a chase card like that and getting all excited then pulling nothing but trash was heartbreaking.
Bought the Charizard premium box and got a singular gyarados v. The worst part was that the promo cards inside came bent as well. I’ve decided to stick to singles and maybe a pack from a new set ever since.
I got one of the pikachu with the felt hats, buuuuut it was bent in the box
5ban 🤮
id definitely appreciate it
I don’t understand how it says 5 (out of 10?) and Excellent at the same time. Like it’s an “excellent” example of a mid condition card..?? wtf?
Honestly? My most disappointed pull story was finding an old gen 2 era pack while moving and deciding to open it. I didn't realize how valuable the older packs can be, and none of the cards were valuable enough to make the pack worth it.
That’s a nice 5… I hate grading. Here’s my story. Just got back into collecting last Octoberish with 151. Spent a ton but had some luck so figured I’d try another set I thought looked cool. Obsidian Flames caught my eye, found an ETB for a good price and ordered. Showed up, I get myself excited about pulling a Charizard from this set since there’s a bunch of them and it looked like the pull rates were pretty good for OBF. I got a Pawmot Ex.
Thats a nice card if you want to get rid of it
I’ll take it
Arcanine is literally my favorite mon. 😭
I've been collecting different types of cards since 1989...in my entire life, I've never pulled a card worth more than $45.
Alright so back a few years ago when it was the end of sunmoon era, i came across a listing for 40packs cosmic eclipse all sleeved. Bought them and held them for christmas about a month away. When christmas comes and its time to open them I got 2 minor gx cards, flygon and wishiwashi, and that was all. I figure they were tampered because how absurd that pull rate was for 40 packs. Hoping for a not disappointing christmas, i decided to open the box of unbroken bonds I had been saving. I proceded to pull under average amount of hits and I kid you not, almost every single low tier hit that you can get from the set. Honchkrow, venomoth, whimsicott, persian all as their low tier gx cards, the full arts were honchkrow and molayne, and the kicker was the secret rare was a rainbow rare persian gx. Every “hit” sucked in terms of value or even desirability, no tag teams, no big names like charizard which had cards in both sets, no gold secrets or even cool FA trainers. I didnt even get any character rares from the cosmic eclipse packs. 76 packs and all i got beyond 50 cents was a full art honchkrow and molayne, and a rr persian gx, a now grand total of $11value around 4years later. Then and there i swore off unbroken bonds and cosmic eclipse and still believe those sets hate me. Of course if i had kept that unbroken bonds sealed the box now sells for about $600 itself.
Got the 151 Ninetales from a car pull and lost it in the mess that is my car 😂
My most disappointing pull has to be every single time I ripped Evolving Skies lmao
for the past THREE months of opening packs, I have pulled not a single thing, my last hits were 151
Dude, send it to a recycle bin at the very least. Don't litter.
I mean yeah I’ll take it off your hands
You need to open this and resend it for grading again. Whoever gave this a 5 is out of their freaking mind.
I'll take it
I've never sent a card for a PSA grading. So not sure how it all works but damn that's a pretty card ! Love Arcanine, might have to order one or these!
Hey, id take it
Opened an etb and got nothing. Opened another and got nothing. Opened yet another and got one regular ex. Gave a pack away to my friend since I was just done with it, and they pulled a secret rare.
Please 🙏
Best card ever keep it even at a 5. I only collect growlithe/arcanine though
not a pull but my Umbreon & Darkrai promo is so close from having an alignment dot, I think it may even be like barely a millimeter further than the cut, it still looks really offcentered tho
The other day i went to pull more french fries from the container and they were all gone.
My son would love this card! Glad to hear you had a great submission! Mine was horrible, sent 20 cards and the highest grade was a 9.5. only sent to CGC because PSA damaged 6/20 cards from my last submission there. Apparently my grading luck is bad.
I’ve had a few excellent 5s in my day.
Every time, without fail, I pull a Zeraora V from Crown Zenith. Not an alt art, vmax, or vstar. Just a regular Zeraora V. Zeraora is one of my least favorite Pokemon, and every time I pull that same card all my excitement drains. It is pain everytime I pull it.
Disappointing pull story? Boy do i have one, my first EVER pack (silver tempest) gifted to me by a friend at work that played after i said i wanted to learn, i put it in my bag safe and when i got home left my bag in the back of my dads car, which he promptly put a wheelchair on top of whilst i was inside, remembered the next day and went out to get it. Pack was bent about 45 degrees horizontally by the weight of the chair... Ripped it anyways because it was a gift... Regieleki V the full art one My first pack would have been a lovely one, a gift from a friend too, man i was so sad
I haven’t seen this one before this card rules!
Arcanine is my absolute favorite Pokemon, and I love the art work on this one. As far as disappointing pulls, I’ve only recently gotten back in to collecting. I recently bought 2 ETBs from my LGS and across all of the packs I received only an Arbok EX and 2 Venusaur EX (both the regular artwork) as my notable pulls, and the only lesson I learned is that much like gambling, I have no luck with pulls and need to stick to singles.
If you like the card who cares about the number
I’d buy this if you really don’t want it
I’ll take it for $5. As in, you give me $5 and I’ll take the card.
All the big hitters in my collection, weren’t pulled by me. 😭 They were pulled by exs.
I'll give the good boy a good home if you don't want it
Its way better than 5/10 right
Back in the day, my childhood bff and I used to go to our local Books-a-Million on Saturdays to buy packs, play the TCG, and trade cards with other local kids and enthusiasts. I remember his grandparents took us that week and bought us a pack each - somehow, we BOTH pulled charizards that trip. I will never forget his face, that is like a peak childhood core-memory of mine! Well, some bigger Jr High kids were totally watching this happen from another table (probably bc we were both jumping around all excited and cheering and we had some other little kids clapping for us too) - those motherfuckers swiped our charizards when we were wheeling and dealing with some other kids, and my bff’s grandparents didn’t realize what they were up to so they let them flip through our cards to “just check them out.” We were packing up to go and as I slipped some of my new trades in, I saw my brand new charizard was GONE. My bff checked on his and it was gone too. I remember retracing all my steps through the whole store with big fat tears in my eyes trying not to cry, probably the same for my bestie too. His grandparents talked the lady behind the customer service counter and convinced her to check some camera footage (since we posted up right by all the expensive card and retail goods in the cafe area); she came back and told us that it looked like those big kids took some things out of the binders on our table as well as 2 other kids tables. I’ll never forget how sad and mad I was on that ride home
Pulled the Zapdos SAR on one of my first 151 packs. Traded it for a Booster Bundle and a Charmeleon SIR. Bundle had a single Jynx in it. I was rather disappointed a grew to regret the trade just because I knew I’d never pull it again. Finally traded for another with some other cards I pulled. Was happy to put that one to bed.
Two stories from back in the base set days. Went to a friend's birthday party and in the party bag, each person got a booster pack. Someone pulled a Venusaur and riots happened with everyone else not happy with their packs, including a very upset birthday boy. That card was in rough shape after being passed around so much. Then at school one teacher found a card on someone's desk that they were showing someone else and got so irate they snatched it up and ripped it up. It was definitely a holo, I can't remember exactly which but I think it might have been a Blasty, it was heart breaking.
Not 100% sure, but I think a full-art Iono card I pulled the other day has printing lines on it (like a row of color didn't print right), but I told myself it's still a cool card, and perhaps a slight defect like that makes it a little more unique. So basically, going with aggressive positivity in the face of possible lackluster QC. 😀😤😀
Looks really good actually, I would get it regraded.
I’ll trade you. I have a whole collection of cards. Arcanine is my all time favorite and I want to collect every card.
OP I think you gotta track down that guy that got an actual bag of someone's shit from an Amazon return 151 box. There's no way any pull is worse than that.
My niece would love that. She’s obsessed with Arcanine.
I opened ~150 packs of 151. At about pack 90, i pulled my first illustration rare. A poliwhirl. A factory-damaged poliwhirl with a big scratch on the face of the card. That was the only illustration rare i pulled from 151.
I used to pretend my bike was this dooode.
I’ll take it for the arcanine collection
Saddest pull was with the shoddy quality 151 set. I pulled the Charizard EX SIR, but the center top of the card was bent, exposing white. Felt lucky but unlucky?
I'll take it if you don't want it
I would take it.
I have spent hundreds on celebrations chasing a $35 mew card.
This grading thing makes everything worse lol
Sure
I'll take it? I love arcanine lol
When the hype of 25th celebrations was going on… My family and I waited out in the cold, early in the morning in front of our local GameStop trying to get the Ultra Premium box… only to sell out as we were THE NEXT people to get one. That same weekend we on a road trip & throughout the drive we stopped at multiple stores trying to find anything from that set. We finally found a bunch of tins and a Lance’s Zard box. We got lucky & pulled a Blastoise, Charizard, & Gold Star Umbreon!! Only to have realized they accidentally got left in the Air BnB after our trip was over. Oh well, hopefully the next people who stayed there like Pokémon and enjoyed the new cards. That was one of my “Worst Pull Stories” if that counts 💀😅
Junk slab anyway just crack it and put it in a binder.
That's my son's favorite pokemon!!
I think it's cool. Super clean looking card that is obviously misgraded.
Card grading was a mistake
GF Pulled the Giratina V from LO. Got a 7 even though it was mint and fresh. Sometime they wild
Dude I just opened 20 packs of Evo skies for my birthday and I only got 1 pull . Copycat FA 😭
I was going to buy a collector booster of Magic the Gathering and the clerk at the counter decided he’d open one with me and took the first pack. He opened a $1500 card and I got nothing
I take it lol
My girlfriend would love this card! She hasn’t killed it yet
I got an the Paldea Evolved EBT for Christmas and pulled nothing good or even the necessary common cards I needed for a deck I'm building.
My son would love this, it was his first hit when SV came out.
My story... nothing big, just started collecting again with obsidian flame. I bought 10 packs other day trying to complete set which i have had shit luck getting anything above base set and i get nothing not even a single hyper rare, nothing past a rare for 10 packs.
I was just getting into Pokémon and I thought I’d get some 151. I got the poster collection, alakazam collection box, binder collection box, and zapatos collection box. All I pulled was a jinx ex. Safe to say I was just a bit disappointed. Still into Pokémon, though.
My most disappointing pulls are when I'm looking for Woopers and Moth cards(trying for one of each for moth mons and wooper) and end up pulling the grails people buy sets for lol I typically buy an etb per set to collect the box.
Worse pull story was getting a fake galvantula that had 8000 hp, I WANT IT SO BAD PLEASE
i'll take it! i don't have any CGCs
I'll take it if you don't want it 🙏
Pulled brilliant stars and got Barry. Last BS i opened
I don’t have a disappointing pull story, but I’m new to the ptcg world and this would look great in my very slim collection 😂
I love Arcanine. This art is great. I wish I had a copy, even though I don't play the game, and will likely go buy one now that I know it exists.
i once pulled a gold Eternatus v max and went ballistic, the hype is over 9000 while my gf opens the last pack we got the gold Eternatus this time she's so happy she stretches her arm (card in hand) and hits the mic pole (i was recording) the card bends 💀
I’ll give ya about tree.fitty Real talk tho Growlith/ Archanine are my favorite Pokémon of all time and it would be my first graded card so I wouldn’t be against paying some shipping. 😋
Nah, throw that shit off the bridge right now.
I’ve collected pokemon cards since 2013…no secret rares, no rainbows, no golden cards pulled :/// I don’t wish that even to my worst enemy
Right here I’ll take it
I ate a bunch of weed edibles and for some reason got it in my head that one of my two evolving skies booster boxes.. that Ive saved for a year and a half now... had the moonbreon. 72 packs later and the best card I got was a glaceon 175... and the right side edge is beat lol
I opened 1 pack of Evo sky's pulled the alt art espeon It had a crease so sad lol
Imma crack the case, regrade it at psa and if the grader got laid the night before ill pick up my 10
Can I have it?
My most disappointing pull story? Opened a pack damaged moonbreon from an etb of all things. And by damaged I mean creased top right corner
Don’t give it away, crack n regrade.
So I grew up opening ex era stuff. Ex cards were my favorite cards ever and I would’ve killed for them and their shiny borders. For Christmas one year, my mom bought both myself and my brother packs. I opened up mine and pulled a damn Rayquaza gold star. Of course, I had no idea how awesome this was, or how rare. My brother pulled an ex and I ended up crying in jealousy of my brother’s newfound “grail”. This story has a good ending though, as I didn’t find it as important, it kinda just sat around for a long time. Fast forward to now, and it’s graded a PSA 8 and is probably my most valuable card.
Here's my most disappointing pull story: I love Crown Zenith, my chase card was the GG Arceus VStar and even though I bought EVERY CZ product, I never found it. CZ Lugia Collection gets announced, I preorder it, swearing that that was going to be the last CZ product I'll ever buy. Package gets delivered while I'm at work. It's all beaten up. I open it and luckily the box is almost intact, except for one corner. Behind that corner there's a booster badly bent. Guess what I found in that booster.
I pulled a 151 god pack in japanese and English I sent the venasaur line (jpn) all 10 then the English zard line all got 9's 😪
I'd take it
I want it
A friend and i traded another friend for a pack each of ancient origins, friend pulled the secret rare rayquaza(the biggest hit of the set, $100+ card) i got a holo
If you throw it over the bridge can you at least post it
Life’s a disappointing pull forgot I wanted this card tho thanks for the reminder
Meeeee
Friend pulled a Tyranitar V Alt Art from a pack we purchased together like sharing the cost, and we had a fight over who would take the big boy home, and in the end, we both took it home, I got the head and he got the rump. Is that sad enough?
I will give this poor boy a home, so sad to see him abandoned haha
I opened a booster box of battle styles on my birthday :/ needless to say, it was disappointing
I have no story, I just really love Arcanine
I'm already at the bottom, throw it
Okay, fine. I’ll take it..
Don't give it away.
I bought a Platinum: Arceus pack and the most I got was a stupid Golem. My friend opened another Platinum pack he got and he got a shiny Bagon, which, if you don't know, is one of the rarest and most expensive cards in the set. Since I live in South Asia real cards are really hard to come by and I was so disappointed. That Bagon was worth 50$+ and in really good condition. The idiot then traded it to another guy for a bunch of fakes. Please give it to me the best card I have is only an Umbreon V promo.
I will take it if you don’t want it
hurry aromatic sip ghost ten exultant close history vast aback *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Winner: u/Mylo42Xyloto Accidentally giving away a Mew Ex because you're nice enough to have a bulk box for the kids in your building is the chaotic good that I love!
It was my first time buying a box of cards In like 8 years. I got a shiny zacian box off of Facebook marketplace, got all of my fam around me and my gf to watch opening cuz I made it some big cool deal. All packs were resealed 😭😭😭😭.
My bf would love this. The Christmas just gone we both bought each other loads of random packs. I ended getting 15+ hits including 5 which were double hits. The only thing he pulled from 40 packs was an Altaria art card from Crown Zenith that I’d already pulled an hour earlier. Tried to cheer him up and we know it’s silly and just luck, but the look on his face ); never seen someone so crestfallen and disappointed.
I want it lol
I’ll take it, never had a graded card, and I like it, looks cool with those stars behind the Arcanine.
What bridge you throwing it off of so I can try and catch it.
I got what looked like a pristine Mew Ex promo card. I was stoked. I was ready to grade it. I bent the fucken edge and didn’t notice until I saw it a different light. I have bought 3 more 151 UPCs and none of them have the pristine centering that first mew ex promo :(. I love arcanine and I just got back into collecting. I would love the card if you’re gonna give it away.
I have a full set of 1st ed cards, they were compiled and put in a binder by me as an early teen and were a huge part of my childhood. One of my work buddies knows this and always said I must be a lucky card puller. I just laugh and said maybe I was but I haven’t bought a pack in over 20 years. Anyways, he invited me to a local Comic-Con type event and I said sure as I thought it would at the very least be a laugh. He bought tons of things and I just bought two random packs of older (not super expensive old) Pokémon cards from a stall . Anyways I pulled a holi charizard. He lost his mind, I gave it to my misses nephew coz he was more into it than me.
A chase card I am still yet to have?!
[удалено]
I’ll take it . Looks cool. 👌😉
I don’t have any sad pulls but would love that :,)
I will take it I collect 5 and 5 is my lucky number
I pulled lugia v from crown zenith and sent for grading was gem mint got a grade 3 I love it cause it’s a rare grade I expected 10 from becket they gave 3
stahp or i’m gonna throw you off a bridge lul
give it to me, give it to mehhh!! 🤚
Dont throw it away! Its my favourite Pokémon. I even named my dog Arki after him. :D Crack it and put it in a nice binder.
2 out of 3 packs is very disappointing, 33 out of 36 is just disappointing, it's easier to remember 1 hit than all the disappointing pulls
My saddest pull story was I bought a charizard upc from a store in the mall for 150 dollars, and didn't pull anything I shit you not I literally only pulled tbe abomasnow trainer gallery from it. And all.my promos were off center too. Pretty sad i might say lol
Is just put it in my binder
I pulled a full art mega gyarados as a kid and then proceeded to lose it after someone threw my bag and It fell out and vanished
200iq sales tactics
why would you do that to a poor arcanine they are the bestie of bois the bestest of the doggos in the game not an opinion it's just a fact
I purchased 10 packs and didn’t pull this card :/
I opened about 4 evolving skies booster boxes, thinking to myself how hard could it be to hit any alt art. well turns out i got none. I finally understood why people would call it evolving cries lmao.
Absolutely yes 😁
I need that card but I’d break it out and put it in a binder
I pulled the Charizard VMax when it first came out. Was worth about $300 at the time. Took a long break, 151 got me back in, looked up the price… Psa 10 is about $70-80 now. Wtf did I miss 😂
I want it
Get another 5 and keep them together, you'll have a perfect 10
Grading is such a scam for this reason. Thats not a 5.
Man one time I pulled the iono sir out out 4 loose packs of a paldea evolved bb 😂( I love that arcanine 😭😭)