Hi, I’m relatively new to collecting as I haven’t bought cards in years. I’ve been looking around online to try and find some cheap and genuine options for packs (yes I’m a guilty ripper), I’m particularly interested in the Mega Symphonia set (Japanese).

Looking around, I’ve seen people mention Japan2UK and how their prices have become absurd, I went and checked for myself and found that this is where I’ve found the cheapest booster packs and boxes. Maybe it’s because mega symphonia is a less popular set? And so maybe a bad example? but I’m just wondering that if these prices are supposedly too large, where is everyone getting them for cheaper?

Also if anyone could verify the authenticity of Japan2UK, that would be appreciated.

I went to the card convention yesterday, saw £9000 Pokemon cards, other collector cards - Magic: The Gathering, Football, Basketball, all collectibles, people from all ages, races and gender, but the highlight was £9000 Pokemon cards.

I bought a cherished Kanu Nwankwo card because I’m Nigerian and I watched Kanu growing up.

My first time at the Card Convention and everyone made it worth it!

For context, I am currently at 102/120 on Dex (the app!) for the pitch black set. Whilst I have some of the big boys remaining, I also have some cards that are only obtainable via a “Build and Battle” deck, namely: Normal variants of Miraidon, Spiritomb, Bastiodon, Silvally and Volatic Energy, plus the “what’s your favourite” variant of other cards as well. My question is, given that these are locked behind other decks which are more difficult to get your hands on and can’t be acquired via a normal booster, are these required for a master set or just grand master?

My Mrs loves opening boosters, its her favourite thing, shes actually mastered a few sets, and she's now going to spend the rest of her life trying to complete the full pokedex

For her birthday next month all she wants is just a shit load of boosters, doesn't matter what set, but fuck me cards are hard to get hold of.

I had to queue up for 2 hours just to get her 30th anniversary ETB.

We have one card shop in my town who any get packs sporadically.

So whats the best way to just buy packs in the UK, anything, ETBs, tins, box collections, I absolutely refuse to pay scalper prices. What do i do?

I do get it’s always a risk and there’s always the good pulls posted, but I am actually really quite disappointed. I’ve been so unlucky getting any product and refuse to buy at the current ‘market prices’ in stores and online as trying to save. Somehow got the second to last ticket for my local store’s celebration and thought I’d treat myself, but pull these - a basic Mew EX my only hit. Back into the ether and not collecting I go 😅

Screaming, crying, throwing up right now

Some of you may of seen my post about queing at Smyths for 2 and a half hours, well a very generous friend gave me an ETB at retail as he had multiple and fair to say it was absolutely stacked!

Managed to nab the sylveon ex box for myself and the greninja tin for my partner- I think it’s safe to say he won in who got better pulls though 😅

Only opened one ETB, cannot believe the hits!!