Help Identifying my cards?

Babyshoe

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hey guys, I hope I'm in the right place. I posted something to Reddit which is actually how I found out about this site and decided to see if there was someone willing to help me out here.

So I'm getting older and have had my Pokemon cards for about 20 years now? I recently started trying to look them up and haven't had a lot of luck. I want to get back into collecting but I'm not sure if what I have now is worth holding on to? If I should sell some of it to start collecting newer stuff? Any help would be appreciated!

Here's a link to a majority of my cards. Any help, info, or advice is much appreciated! Thanks in advance! ^_^

https://imgur.com/a/bInHgQV
 
I saw some shadowless card, I believe.
Like the machamp.
It's a 1st edition shadowless card.
I think.
I'm not a serious collector.
The hitmonchan is also shadowless, I think.
These 2 might be worth some.
Also, people might want the charizard from you.
Everyone wants charizard.
You can go on tcgplayer to look at card prices.
 
Awesome! Thanks for the info. Hard to find people who want to go over cards with me. Really appreciate the input! I'm not so much looking to sell as I am looking to get rid of bulk ya know? I want to get back into collecting but need some spare money before I do so :p
 
You have a pretty good collection here! Here are some basic guidelines for what is and isn't valuable:
  • Holographic cards - Cards with the shiny holofoil in the illustration are popular with collectors, and they're usually worth at least $5-10 apiece.
  • 1st edition cards - These cards have a "1st Edition" graphic near the bottom right of the illustration. Non-holographic 1st edition cards aren't worth as much, but holographic cards can sell for $20 or more, depending on the card.
  • Shadowless cards - These cards don't have a shadow on the right side of the illustration box. like 1st edition cards, these are worth more when they're holographic, at least $20. Note that cards can be shadowless and 1st edition, in which case they are worth a fair bit more.
  • 2nd Generation cards - Cards from the 2nd generation of the TCG are harder to find, and worth a bit more than other cards. These can be identified by the dark crescents behind the weakness and resistance.
  • Japanese cards - I don't know a whole lot about Japanese card values, but I believe they are worth more than their English counterparts.
  • Charizard cards - Like AngryBokoblin said, Charizard cards are worth quite a bit, especially if they're holographic. If you have a Charizard that's 1st edition, shadowless, and in good condition, then let's just say that you won't need to pay for college.
If you want to know the exact values of your cards, I would recommend going to tcgplayer.com. However, they don't have values for 1st edition cards (idk why), so for those cards you may need to check some other websites. If you are going to sell your cards, I would recommend selling them individually, as you will likely get more money for them that way. However, if you just want to sell bulk, your best bet might be selling on Ebay. Good luck!
 
Oh wow! Thank you for all the info I super super appreciate it!

I do have a base set Holo charizard bumping around somewhere. Can't recall if its first edition or not though. I remember buying it for 20-25 dollars at the time. Crossing my fingers while typing this hoping it is lol.

I've done a bit of research but like I said its hard to understand what exactly what you're looking and sometimes not looking for. Like I said I had pulled almost all of these cards from back in 1999/2000 :p and like you said I can't find much on first editions or Japanese cards. I talked to the head of pokellector.com yesterday morning and he said he'd appreciate some scans of some of the cards that he doesn't have listed yet.

Do you think if I wanted some help I should look for someone at a card shop or something? I want to get back into collecting and I kinda wanna find someone who will go over things with me. If all else fails I'll definitely check tcgplayer.com and educate myself :p

Again, thanks a ton for the info! Excited to see what else I have in my collection!
 
If you are a collector and not really in need for a few hundred dollars, I would keep all the cards. If I sold them I would regret it. As a collector it generally just feels better to have some good quality 20 year old cards than having some new cards of which thousands exist in good quality.

The value will not go down if you keep them like that. During the last 10 years old card prizes kind of exploded. When I got back into collecting in 2012, there were still Jugle Booster boxes on Ebay for ~$150 and Base Set Booster packs for $10. Now it's 5 times that amount. Similar things go for the single cards. I'm quite sure you could buy a non-first edition, non-graded Base Set Charizard 7-8 years ago for ~$40-50, now you can only get one in very bad condition that isn't really worth collecting.
 
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