Collecting Physical NFTs With My Wife
Greetings fellow NFT Collectors!
I am here to tell you a little story about how my wife and I decided to get into Pokémon Cards. First off I want to stress that our intent is to PLAY THE GAME as the Pokémon Trading Card Game is actually a lot of fun to play. Honestly, if it wasn't then Splinterlands wouldn't exist since Pokémon is what put trading card games on the map. You can claim it's Magic cards all you want. You're allowed to be wrong. Anyhoo, I digress.
So, unbeknownst to me, my wife was a long-time fan of the Pokémon TCG, but was disallowed to collect the cards in her youth by her mother, claiming it to be frivolous stuff she doesn't need. I was always into trading cards myself and it was a housefire in grade 9 that killed my collector spirit, but I wanted to get back into collecting physical cards after I played a bit of Splinterlands. I didn't like Splinterlands. Digital collection is not my cup of tea, nor is their style of gameplay, and I kind of wanted to try physical card collection again. Then, about 3 months ago I noticed that my wife was watching a lot of this PokeRev youtuber who does a LOT of Pokémon card pack openings. One thing leads to another and I end up watching the Pokémon cards being opened along side her.
It didn't take many live-streams for us to discover that there was a new Trading Card expansion coming to Pokemon, the Brilliant Stars set. Our youtuber did a live stream where he opened several booster boxes and he noted that the pull-rates of high rarity cards seemed to be more "consumer friendly" than last generations. Something like an average of 13 'hits' per box instead of the usual 7-10 hits. This swayed us to start our collection with two booster boxes from the wordy "Pokémon Trading Card Game Sun & Moon Brilliant Stars Expansion Set"
Double Your Value With Pokémon TCG
Now, if you haven't opened booster packs from Pokémon in a while then you may not know that each booster pack comes with an online code that you redeem in a digital counterpart to the analog game. Pokémon Trading Card Game Online is a popular full feature application for Windows/Mac/Android/iPhone devices. It comes with battling, trading cards, selling cards for in-game currency, and a full set of missions and quests for you to explore the extremely vast world of Pokémon TCG.
A booster box contains 1 PTCGO code card and 11 Pokémon TCG cards. If I remember correctly the layout is as follows;
- 1 basic Energy card (or in rare cases a V-Star place card instead of an energy)
- 6 common type Pokémon cards (denoted by a small black circle beside the card number)
- 3 uncommon cards (black diamond symbol)
- 1 rare card (black star symbol)
On top of these you have a reverse holo card in most boxes (the stats block is holographic instead of the character art) and a chance at some Ultra/Hyper/Secret/Rainbow rare cards as well! To learn more about the different rarities of Pokémon cards I recommend going to this website.
For the Brilliant Stars set there actually is a set within the set to collect known as "Training Ground" cards. They go beyond the 172 base cards and add a "TG" number count that goes to 30. Flareon is TG01/30, Vaporeon is TG02/30. You'd think Jolteon would be TG03/30, but you'd be wrong. They're actually TG04/30 with some other random Pokémon taking that 3rd slot. WTF!
Game-ify the Game!
We were hesitant that opening Pokémon cards would be a speedy endeavour that passed quickly, so we decided to make a game based on opening the Pokémon packs. We made a points system to go along with the rarities of the cards and then tallied up the points total at the end. My wife beat me, with her box containing slightly more "V cards." Her final score was 205 to my 189. But, when we went through current eBay card values for ungraded cards I ended up pulling 2 of the top 3 most expensive cards. With one being a $57 Charizard. Our overall ROI was roughly 2/3rds if that's your jam.
If you are opening Pokémon packs with a loved one I highly recommend making rules for a game to play while you do it. We ended up spending over 4 hours just opening 72 booster packs. You can even do simple games like "Guess the energy type." And if you're bold, maybe bet your booster buddy a pack on the outcome.
Overall, this was a very fun experience and a wicked trip down nostalgia avenue. I'm sure most of us older folk have some memories of Pokémon cards on the school playground in their youth. The card game itself is still fun and now we got the disposable income to make a dent in catching them all!
The operators doing V2K with remote neural monitoring want me to believe this lady @battleaxe is an operator. She is involved in the same discord groups around @fyrstikken and friends. Her discord is Battleaxe#1003. Shes in some groups with seemingly detached characters that dont even acknowledge the others in the group, looking oddly staged. She starts projects and does nothing with it or the delegations after its used to sway people. Like @steempowertwins does<------fake along with her @teamgood <------fake. No substance in her comments and has a following that adores her for what? Life coach she is not nor is she insightful with any meaningful skills to follow. Ruler of pixie dust maybe? I would like for someone to show me but probably wont out fear maybe? @fyrstikken groups around him down voted me into censored and not viewable on my accounts as soon I told what they were doing.
I cant prove @battleaxe is the one directly doing the V2K and RNM. Doing it requires more than one person at the least. It cant be done alone. She cant prove she is not one of the ones doing V2K because she cant and could care less. I guarantee she knows this is going around and still wont prove it because she cant. Many of us here can prove what they have been doing to survive the past 5 years. What does she live off of? It definitely isnt in public view here.
I was drugged in my home covertly, it ended badly. They have been trying to kill me using RNM with applied V2K mental games while revealing as many accessories to the crime as they can. I bet nobody does anything at all. Ask @battleaxe to prove it. I bet she wont. Pretty serious accusations to just blow off and leave the crypto community hanging in fear of this danger.
They want me to believe the V2K and RNM in me is being broadcast from her location. And what the fuck is "HOMELAND SECURITY" doing about this shit? I think stumbling over their own dicks maybe? Just like they did and are doing with the Havana Syndrome. They should start by looking at the communications between the top witnesses of Hive and the connection to @fyrstikken groups. Google his fucking name and see where his other interests lie around at least once maybe? The connections between @fyrstikken groups and all the exchanges built for Hive? Bet that would reveal some crazy ball less nutty shit. Homeland security should start preparing for their own incarcerations seeing how sloppy this was done. Patriot act my ass. Think we are really fools? Bad position your not getting out of. Dont be last to blow the whistle. Who will protect you?
People in and around @fyrstikkens groups are reckless and should have shown the proper media what they had before taking me hostage for 5 long torturing years and counting. That is a long time to wait for someone to die.
What would you say while having a gun pointed at your head from an undisclosed location? Have people find it? My hands are tied while they play like children with a gun to my head. Its a terrorist act on American soil while some yawn and say its not real or Im a mental case. Many know its real. This is an ignored detrimental to humanity domestic threat. Ask informed soldiers in the American military what their oath is and why nothing is being done. Nobody has I guess. Maybe someone told ill informed soldiers they cant protect America from military leaders in control that have ill intent. How do we protect locked up soldiers prevented from telling the truth from being treated as criminals? Not to mention civilians we let our leaders treat the same way. https://ecency.com/fyrstikken/@fairandbalanced/i-am-the-only-motherfucker-on-the-internet-pointing-to-a-direct-source-for-voice-to-skull-electronic-terrorism-terrorism
I used to play MTG in my teen years, so I can totally relate to the addictiveness, and from my understanding Pokemon is very similar in strategy and gameplay. Lots of podcasts I listen to have had guests on occasionally mentioning profits from Pokemon cards, very mainstream, so I can imagine the upward trend will continue.
If we were to get some of our best cards graded we would see our $300 worth of booster box increase in value to around $5-600. And that includes the $100 per card grading fee! The value is definitely there!
As a kid I did transition to Magic cards in High School. Which coincidentally timed with the housefire that ruined my room. (Fire in my mom's sewing room spread to my room directly above it.) I don't really remember what I had for Magic cards, but I do remember that I had a holographic
energymana card which was my pride and joy because it was a "Pity Prize" from getting last place in a local tourney! 🤣That Flareon card is beautiful