My favorite Pokémon cards to collect are those belonging to so-called “subsets.” These are mini collections within, or sometimes across, the larger, official sets released by The Pokémon Company every two months or so.
Sometimes, these sets are deliberate, for example with a designated rarity. At other times, Pokémon just throws in a bunch of cards following the same theme. Many subsets include nine cards, which all neatly fit on one page in a binder. Others go up to 18, 30, or even 35 cards. But in all cases, they’re limited number of entries makes them more attainable—at least relative to collecting full master sets of the main expansions, which can easily run into the thousands of dollars, even for new releases.
The latest subset I’m collecting is one of several featuring “shining” Pokémon. These are rare, glowing, differently-colored versions of their respective Pokémon’s counterparts. The nine cards in this subset are from 2017. Some still cost less than 10 bucks in near-mint condition. Others have already run beyond 100 euros. They’re not quite considered vintage yet, but they soon will be.
Every time I go after a collection goal like this, I have to ask myself: What condition do I want to obtain these cards in? For bigger milestones, like my Umbreon master set, I immediately knew I would not be able to afford all cards in almost-new status. But whenever I can, I go for the most minty condition I can. Since these were only nine cards and most of them still affordable, I set my filters to near-mint and went off.
Often, the price jump hurts when you look at it. “Ack. An ‘excellent’ one would run me 150. Near-mint is 200.” It feels hard to justify. Visually, the quality jump between “excellent” and “near-mint” can be almost imperceptible, depending on the cards. Especially if all you’ll do is place them in a binder, like me.
But there is a catch: The more the price increases over time, the bigger the gap between squeaky clean and three small scratches becomes. What’s a 50-euro difference now might end up being a 200-euro gap in five years’ time. And that’s before grading the cards, which I don’t usually do—but retaining the option for the future also holds value.
For one of the cards, the near-mint version I ultimately chose was almost three times as expensive as the cheapest excellent option. But as soon as I held it in my hand, I knew: This was money well spent.
It’s hard to invest 30%, 50%, 100% more only to go from 90% to 100% on the quality scale. Not every scenario warrants it. But some do—and when you’re convinced you’ve found yourself in one of them, you should not hesitate to cough up the extra dollars, hours, or resources.
Excellence is sneaky: Getting the last 10% demands so much more than just those extra 10%. But that’s why we call it “excellence”—and why the first spot on the podium is valued much more highly than the second.
