Pokemon TCG collector horrified by “anti-theft” measure that cost player hundreds
APokemon TCGcollector was shocked to learn a friend used to cut cards’ corners to prevent them from being stolen when they were a kid, resulting in the clipping of a highly valued card.
The Pokemon Trading Card game has been around for almost 30 years and over that time more than 200,000cards have been releasedinto the world.
While most of them are common ones, there are some extremely expensive cards that any experienced collector would love to acquire, and their value can escalate toover 5 million dollars.
Of course, the value depends on the card’s rarity, but also its condition, with ‘Gem Mint’ being the ultimate grading.
Expensive Charizard card gets its corners clipped
A user fromthe PokemonTCG Reddit channelposted a picture of a Charizard Holo card with its corners clipped.
“When my best friend was about 9, he used to clip the corners on his cards so other kids wouldn’t steal them. We’re at a loss for words”, they explained.
Although cutting the corners of a card is actually a good method to prevent theft or even a quick way to recognize your cards when playing, the painful part of the situation is that the author’s friend clipped an important Charizard card, which is valued at over $600.
Because Charizard is one of the most iconic Pokemon in the franchise collectors are always after any cards featuring the fire dragon. This very same card – though First Edition and Shadowless – currently sits asone of the most expensive cards in the world, as it was sold in an auction for $420,000.
Fellow collectors took on the comments section to share the pain, with one angry one writing, “Dam*, just hammer and chisel your name on both sides, why don’t ya?” However, others opted for a more empathic approach. “Oof… at least it wasn’t a First Edition or a Shadowless though, lol”, a user noted.
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The silver lining is that most took the post lightly and with humor, as several players showed their support for the ‘card cutter’, saying that it’s all about the fun and not the money and that he was a smart kid because his technique ultimately worked.
“It was a game for kids and meant to be played. This is beautiful,” one user said, while another added, “I kind of love this. This kid didn’t care about the condition; it cared about having a Charizard and not losing it. That’s dope.”
Others even shared their own experiences. “I did this to my favorite two cards at the time, that Charizard and a Mewtwo. Except I cut all of the yellow borders off. Oops,” someone wrote, to which another replied, “Nice. I got a couple of cards still with my name on them written by my mom so no one would steal them.”
Despite many collectors taking cards very seriously – evencausing fightswhen new sets are released in stores – Pokemon TCG is a game aimed at kids and they can do whatever they want with their cards, as long as they have a good time, which is something older players could learn.
