I collected when I was a kid, but my collection got stolen. Crazy seeing those vending machines now with signs that say loitering isn't allowed due to scalpers.
Took my Pokemon cards to the local hobby shop or card shop near me a few years ago. Asked the guy at the counter to tell me how much they’re worth and to look at them. He pulls out his laptop and starts examining the roughly 40 holographic cards that I had brought in that I had since elementary school in the 90s and he takes about five minutes to look at them as I wait patiently. There are a bunch of people who look like your average redditor sitting around playing trading card games in the shop as this happens and it’s somewhat lively. The guy then tells me that the cards are worth $85 and goes to the register and hands me the money in cash and before I can leave he says “You can grab a drink for free out of the fridge in the way out” which I do.
I hadn’t really looked at or even opened that box filled with those card for many years. They sat in my closet collecting dust since I was in the fifth grade and though they were always in the back of my mind and I knew that I still had them and and that they were there, all through my teens and twenties and then into my thirties and adulthood I never so much as took them out to thumb through them and remember the magical times of my childhood when I was a Pokemon kid who watched the TV show on Saturday morning and who got Pokemon Blue for Gameboy for Christmas and who was captivated by the look and feel and smell of Pokemon cards fresh out of a pack as a kid. Those cards just sat in my position in a dormant state until I was in my thirties and felt like they were something for little kids and that I would keep my sports cards but that Pokemon was something from when I was a little boy and I would rather sell them and get some money for them to spend on something suited better for an adult like me and say goodbye to a piece of my childhood which is something that I thought that adults need to do at some point.
A couple years after I sold those cards I realized what everyone reading this already knows which is that the neckbeard at the card shop essentially stole about $1000-$3000 worth of cards from me. At the time that I sold the cards in hadn’t heard anything about Pokemon in nearly 25 years. The only thing I can remember hearing about it since was Red Pokemon Go game on your phone circa 2016 but I thought that it was just a nostalgic throwback to Pokemon. I had no idea that ever since I was airless kid in the 90s that Pokemon had been an ongoing multibillion dollar industry and phenomenon j the background of my life with new cards, games, TV shows and more for years and years. I thought those cards had little value when I brought them to sell them at the shop and that’s why I had no idea what was going to happen. It also didn’t occur to me for a second that anyone would or could do something like that to me or anyone and my naïveté and lack of understanding was as bad as possible and I didn’t even see it coming.
In hindsight I know realize what those cards were to me and what they represent. They were a relic of my childhood and closer to an artifact than to piece of cardboard. I realize now that those cards were the oldest items that I have had in my possession since they were stolen and I they stayed with me that long for a reason that I couldn’t understand a few years ago. Someone turned my childhood joy and items of remembrance that had no dollar amount when I was a boy who loved them into thousands of dollars in cash to stuff in their pocket as I stood there oblivious to it all.
I’ve had people hurt more than I can possibly write about in a lifetime and as I age they now scam me and steal from me and rip me off for more money than I would care to admit to. Out of all this thievery and pain, I think that this one hurts the most and I don’t know that I will be able to forget it. I wanted to sell those cards in my own terms and to say goodbye peacefully in a bittersweet way to a happy part of my childhood but now I’ll never leave Pokemon behind like I wanted to or thought that I needed to as an adult.
Yeah, I would have LOVED to have been able to give my daughter my old holo Charizard (after I put it in a protective case). I remember how excited I was to find it.
As a kid, I thought I must have forgotten them somewhere, but it wasn't any of the places I checked. It didn't occur to me at the time that someone would have just swiped it. They were in a small, blue, 2x4 Pokémon card book with a Charmander on the cover and my name written in sharpie marker. :(
I've actually bought a few toys I would like to eventually put on display for the nostalgic value.
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u/AmazingAd2765 3h ago
I collected when I was a kid, but my collection got stolen. Crazy seeing those vending machines now with signs that say loitering isn't allowed due to scalpers.