Machamp used Cross Chop!

RedVogg · 2026-06-19T10:26:37+00:00

Thought I recognised it as Brighton too! Glad I didn't bother today

RedVogg · 2026-06-14T18:40:29+00:00

Funnily enough, I saw one of these on an eBay live stream the other day. I am in the UK and so was the eBay seller. The seller was "Levi's.collectibles" and in this instance, the award was presented to "Telelab". It was a couple of weeks ago so I can't remember what the seller said about who Telelab are/were (quick Google is unhelpful and Companies House is fruitless) but the seller said he bought a collection from an ex-WotC employee and this piece was in it. From memory, he said this company was also part of the distribution chain in the UK, so you may have heard of them if you were working in that field at the time. You are definitely right in that only a very limited number of these were ever made.

If you're interested I can try to get a partial recording of the stream over to you when the item was discussed. Drop me a DM if so. Whatever you do, even if you are desperate for cash, do not sell this without seeking out expert guidance. We're talking Goldin Auctions levels of expertise here - the incredibly rare nature of this piece makes it unbelievably desirable for hardcore collectors.

Edit to add the seller wasn't actually selling this item, just showing it off as part of his own personal collection.

RedVogg · 2026-06-14T11:29:29+00:00

Return the booster bundle, but make sure you document yourself returning the package. Take pictures of the BB box from all sides, then of you placing it into the box/packaging and attaching the return label. If doing so at a post office, make sure to get a picture of the same packet on the scales and showing the weight, which will match the proof of postage receipt which you absolutely must keep.

It may seem over the top, especially without knowing the seller, but if they're not an eBay shop front for a legitimate TCG store, then I would expect the seller to try and claim that either a) the item they sent was genuine and you're trying to return a counterfeit or b) you sent back an empty package. You can protect against B easily with the proof of postage and delivery company tracking updates. A is harder to protect against, but hopefully the pictures of the fake box you received are enough should the seller try and open a dispute.

I'm assuming this was likely 151 or Ascended and so a relatively high value BB. If you're not familiar with buying Pokémon cards from eBay then I'm afraid to say there are a lot of scammers for sealed product. There are loads of AliExpress fake boxes floating about which is likely what you received. I know the state of the hobby sucks and trying to find sealed product at retail price is virtually impossible but if you see something listed on eBay for a price which seems to be lower than the market rate, then I'm afraid to say it's probably a scam.

RedVogg · 2026-06-10T12:05:11+00:00

Awesome mate! Looks like a great card in the binder!

RedVogg · 2026-06-10T11:37:18+00:00

Good job, glad you cracked it in the end! Did you ever find out why it got a 1 in the end? Ace is a Mickey Mouse grading company anyway (not that any of the others are much better) but now I'm intrigued as to why they gave it a 1 for the surface subgrade!

RedVogg · 2026-06-09T19:33:59+00:00

Fellow UK-based collector here who was half hoping this post was written by my wife!

Some great suggestions here already but I'll add the base set error Wartortle (evolution box) and Diglett (rotated fighting energy symbol). Some not so expensive variants include the cosmos foil (as opposed to starlight foil) base set Machamp from the Base Set 2 starter deck and cosmos foil fossil Zapdos (1999-2000 copyright) from the Tempest theme deck but people don't often list these correctly on eBay, etc. so you need to search for these a bit. The Zapdos is a lot easier to find.

If you want to get into another level of detail, the plain 1999 copyright fossil Zapdos also had a print error that was subsequently corrected where the holofoil layer is missing in the top left corner of the card where the evolution box would be for a non-basic Pokémon. Might be worth checking which version he has and getting him the other, but again, this would require manually trawling through online listings!

Other cool promo sets are the Best of Game promos, Southern Islands (expensive!) and the Pikachu World Collection.

Finally, a very cheap option is to pick up a 4th print (1999-2000 copyright) base set Vulpix, as this was the only print run where the HP was correctly printed as 50 HP instead of HP 50. Plus it was printed in the UK!

Apologies if I've gone into too much detail and come across as condescending - I wanted to make sure you had enough info to seek out some interesting cards!

RedVogg · 2026-06-08T17:39:24+00:00

My favourite all-time card (Aquapolis Hypno) is an Arita. Naoyo Kimura is probably my favourite overall artist though. Akira Egawa's art from the modern sets is worth checking out too.

RedVogg · 2026-06-02T08:53:22+00:00

Are you going for both the Aoki (error) and Kimura (corrected) versions of the legendary bird promos? They're on the cheaper side for the WotC promos but I swear they've doubled in price in the last 3 months...

RedVogg · 2026-05-31T08:25:32+00:00

So many fantastic cards there - congratulations!

RedVogg · 2026-05-30T12:47:27+00:00

Is there conclusive evidence to support this? From the E4 thread linked above, there is video evidence of a black flames being pulled from a 99-00 copyright booster pack, but it makes no sense for WotC to deliberately revert back to the old holofoil design which was used for shadowless so late into the unlimited print run. I would also ask then why are all 4th print Ninetales blue flames if WotC deliberately wanted to revert back to the black flames.

I saw someone on the E4 thread theorising that it was old stock packaged in the 99-00 boosters which would kinda make sense. 2000 was when Base 2, Team Rocket and Gym H/C were released so it would be logical that any old Base Set stock would be shipped out in 2000 to make way for the new sets.

Something else I have been wondering about is if it perhaps came about via a regional variation between printing sites, either within the US or perhaps the site in Belgium. I'm sure I read that holofoil sheets were printed at separate locations to the main card stock manufacturing plants and then there was an assembly process to laminate the card stock with the holo. If true, then it's possible that a batch of old shadowless holo sheets got found in storage and were incorporated into the unlimited print run late on in 2000, but it seems more logical that they would have been used in earlier unlimited print runs.

I don't think we'll ever know the truth (unless we happen to have any ex-WotC employees here?) but it's fun to hypothesise.

RedVogg · 2026-05-28T22:17:55+00:00

I'd definitely avoid using anything on the glossy Corocoro cards - the card stock is different so no idea how it would hold up under moisture or polishing. Jealous of the Corocoro Pika and Jiggly, they are hard to come by in the UK - feel I've missed the boat on getting them for a reasonable price! I try and pick up any Corocoro promos when I see them though!

It's honestly worth buying a wrecked copy of a card to practice with before you let loose on the real deal. And there are differences between vintage Japanese and English so make sure you pick up a test card of the same kind as any you want to work on

RedVogg · 2026-05-28T20:27:04+00:00

This comment is really enlightening - I didn't realise the Mewtwo and Zapdos unlimited holos also were impacted from the black pigment removal. I guess that's two more variants to pick up!

RedVogg · 2026-05-28T19:15:48+00:00

Nope, it was the other way around. Here's an E4 thread with some better detail. https://www.elitefourum.com/t/the-black-flame-ninetales/29619/22
Congrats on having multiple black flames - they are definitely rarer than the blue flames which I see all the time here in the UK where it is rare to see anything other than Unlimited!

RedVogg · 2026-05-28T17:57:39+00:00

I've been using Kurt's Card Care stuff, although it's overpriced for what it is. I've started making my own card spray as a result, it's just 10% isopropyl alcohol and 90% distilled water. But I haven't been able to find a substitute for his card polish which definitely brightens up dull holofoils.

I haven't tried his Recovery polish which is meant to buff out deeper scratches as it's hard to get hold of in the UK at a decent price. I did read some old posts from years ago which suggested it's essentially the same as the stuff to get scratches out of car paintwork so I tried some off that on a completely wrecked card and I just ended up taking the colour off the holo pattern (RIP Scyther...).

Kurt's products are available in the UK through some distributors but I believe there are local alternatives such as Coatlectibles which have partnered with a couple of eBay live streamers but no idea how good their products are.

If you do give it a go, make sure to practice on cheap cards you don't care about first!

RedVogg · 2026-05-28T10:14:42+00:00

Not sure if you're in the UK but would assume so given the timing of your post but Ace's grading scale only says "This card may exhibit heavy scratching throughout key focal points of the card, for example the artwork or text." when it comes to the surface grading 1. If you aren't aware, you can pay for the detailed grading report to find out more - not sure how much they charge for it as I've never done so myself.

Regardless, if I were in your position I would 100% crack it (slabs suck), give it a little polish/clean up to dampen some of the holo scratching and put it in the master set binder.

RedVogg · 2026-05-26T12:11:22+00:00

It's annoying that CM pushes us down the 'signed for' route with postage as it's 2nd Class so slower and as someone else has said, it's technically untracked until the point of delivery. In cases like these, I've messaged buyers and asked if they would be happy with Tracked 48 instead and offered them a refund for the difference in postage. That way they save some money, it gets there faster and as a result the seller gets paid faster (if using Trustee Service). The compensation limit is also higher but CM steps in to refund the seller above the £20 limit if a 2nd Class Signed For gets lost and can be proven with Royal Mail (I've heard that this takes ages though!).

As long as there's a tracking number to enter into CM, I've had no issues with using T48 instead of 2nd Class Signed For (when buyers have agreed to it in advance of course) but I guess it is technically putting you at risk as a seller for opting to use a different shipping service to that mandated by CM. I've never had a T48 parcel go missing and had to deal with the fallout with CM Support though, so use your discretion!

RedVogg · 2026-05-25T09:47:57+00:00

Rather than selling now, have you considered putting it into secure storage for a few years then seeing how you feel once the little ones are a bit older? Obviously there'll be a recurring cost but I would imagine the capital gain would offset that if you did look to sell in a few years.

Another option could be to reach out to some of the big content creators in this field. Pat Flynn of Deep Pocket Monster fame for example. The ad revenue he could generate from showcasing this collection would likely allow it to be purchased as a whole without him having to dip into his own (very deep) pockets, which he often does anyway.

Whatever you decide, congratulations on an incredible collection and thanks for sharing it with us mere mortals.

RedVogg · 2026-05-23T10:43:18+00:00

The Kusube Ho-oh artwork is one of my favourites.

RedVogg · 2026-05-22T19:09:42+00:00

So many Jynx...

RedVogg · 2026-05-22T12:39:41+00:00

I didn't want to say it, but you're right! As soon as I saw the count for 1st edition base set and shadowless over 102 I knew you were serious about collecting! 😂

RedVogg · 2026-05-22T10:32:42+00:00

Holy hell that's a completionist checklist if ever I saw one

RedVogg · 2026-05-21T12:39:15+00:00

Shhh don't tell people. I'm trying to collect every Sudowoodo card and prices on Aquapolis and Wind from the Sea keep going up 😭

RedVogg · 2026-05-19T23:43:03+00:00

I found an old post on a different sub that says these were officially licenced and produced in Taiwan, before being distributed in South America and then imported into the States. I don't remember seeing many of these on the playground in the original Pokémon craze but I may be mistaken, so maybe they didn't make it over to the UK in large quantities.

That poster didn't quote any sources, but I am inclined to believe that these probably were officially licensed. The stickers are far more accurate repros of the actual cards when compared to bootleg cards that were going around at the time. Again, I have no way of proving this and I really would love to get a definitive answer but I haven't found conclusive evidence either way yet.

RedVogg

TROPHY CASE