So, I said I'd share some pics of my collection if I could, and here they are. We're doing a bit of house clearing, so I was able to get these out of storage temporarily. Excuse the poor quality due to dim lightning at the time I took these.
My complete sets are stored within 3 binders. I collected 1st edition base through Neo Genesis. Here they are in chronological order. Aside from 1st base, I only posted the first page of each set to cut down on the number of pics.
Starting off with the granddaddy 1st edition base set. I actually started collecting during the unlimited shadowless release, and as such this is the only set that I didn't pull completely fresh from booster packs.
Unlimited Base (shadowless)
1st edition Jungle
1st edition Fossil. I don't know why I didn't save 3 more booster sleeves to complete the cover page. *shrugs*
1st edition Team Rocket
1st edition Gym Heroes. I included the last page of TR, because I thought it was cool the holo Raichu was the last card, numbered 83/82. I thought I had a rare mistake when I pulled it, but that's just how the set was created.
1st edition Gym Challenge. I don't know why I eschewed the cover page altogether. But this was the start of a new binder, so maybe it slipped my mind. I didn't do a cover page for Neo Genesis either.
1st edition Neo Genesis
Sealed booster boxes and early theme decks. I thought I had boxes of the last 3 sets also, but I remembered I gave them away as gifts when my young cousins, nieces, and nephews started getting into the Pokemon TCG.
Numbered promo cards. Sorry you can't see the cards that are sealed. I stopped at promo #23. Only missed #19 which was from Nintendo Power.
Ignore the 2 Pikachus. They're on the page in back of this one.
My Pikachu collection. These are all the Pikachus I collected at the time. It looks like there are duplicates, but each one is unique. The rarest ones are probably the sealed red-cheeked E3 Pikachu and the 1st edition promo #1 of which a small number of them accidentally got printed along with 1st edition Jungle cards, hence they mistakenly got "1st edition" printed on them before it was corrected. I remember pulling it from my third Jungle pack. Super lucky!
Various promos. The gold-stamped W's were from magazines like The Duelist and Top Deck. Gold-bordered Meowth was from Fruit Roll-ups. The prerelease-stamped cards were ... prerelease promos. Ancient Mew is the coolest Pokemon card ever. Sorry it's sealed.
Jumbo cards
A couple of trainer badges I earned from the local Pokemon league.
Some collector cards I think I got from Burger King. Says they're 23K gold plated.
Found these Japanese Southern Island sets at Japan Town in San Francisco. Got one of each one they had. Didn't know there were 2 other sets to complete the collection. Supposedly very rare as a sealed set. I just got them because they were Pokemon cards!
The 2 Japanese cards below I got from a trade at the local shop. Didn't know what they were but they looked cool. The card on the right is supposedly super rare and was never released in English. It's called Imakuni's Doduo. Imakuni is supposedly some guy who sings songs for the anime.
But the real treasure is the demo pack up top. I don't even remember where I got it from, but it was one of the earliest items I got when I started collecting. Preferring to keep things sealed when I can (aside from boosters when making sets), I resisted the urge to ever open it. But I was so curious what cards were inside and there was no info to be found online, and no one I knew in person ever heard of it or seen it. Well I guess more of them started surfacing after all these years, because just checking eBay after rediscovering it in my storage, there are several listings. And people are paying upwards of $300 for it! Glad I didn't open it, because it's just some basic cards inside that aren't worth much on their own. But I guess it's rare to find these sealed since understandably most of them have probably been opened, being a demo pack and all.
I also have binders and cardboard crates of a bunch of dupes and constructed decks. And other promo cards and collectibles in another misplaced box somewhere. I didn't just collect, but played casually and in tournaments all the time. I eventually transitioned back into Magic the Gathering, my first TCG love long before Pokemon. Fortunately, there were also MtG players transitioning to Pokemon, so we made a bunch of mutually beneficial trades to help each other with the transition.
It's neat seeing my young nieces and nephews getting into the TCG now. I don't buy any for myself anymore, but I'll buy elite trainer boxes and such for their birthdays and get excited vicariously through them as they open them up. =D