2 Flashfire Checklane Blister Packs: Honedge & Skiddo

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here!

Today I have not one but two checklane blister packs to open from the Flashfire series. Both packs come with a booster pack, a coin and an exclusive promo card; a Skiddo and a Honedge.
Individually they cost me £3.45 from Card Team.

If you look at the picture bellow you will see that one of the blister packs (and the promo card within it) got damaged. I am not sure when this occurred. I very much doubt Card Team would send out damaged goods, so I believe it got damaged either during transport (curse you Royal Mail!), by being forcefully shoved through the letter box (curse you again Royal Mail!!) and/or by being badly stored by those to which the package was delivered to (I was abroad when this package was delivered).
Well whatever happened, it means I'm going to have to purchase myself another copy of the damaged card (the Honedge). Thankfully, it does not seem to be expensive to buy individually at all.

Anyways, as usual click here to check out the video or scroll down to view the pulls I got.

It might not be immediately evident, but the blister pack on the right hand side is quite bent on the bottom left. This sadly also affected the promo card inside.

Two awesome coins. My favourite of the two has to be Chespin. Not necessarily just because Chespin is my favourite of the Kalos starters, but also because this green reflective colour goes very well with the coin and image.

Promo card XY11 Skiddo! 

This image does not do justice to just how sparkly that holofoil is!

My damaged Honedge, Black Star Promo XY12

As you can see, this card has been bent quite severely bent at the bottom =(

And these are the rare cards I pulled from both blister packs. A Snorlax and a Durant.

Again, I am disappointed that the promo card was damaged, especially since they are the main reason I purchase these kind of blister packs in the first place, but I am lucky that it does not cost much to buy separately. 

Well, not the most amazing of openings. But I can garantee you that the next adventure will be epic ;)

Stay tuned to see exactly how epic it is! 

Deoxys-EX - 2013 Fall Tin

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here.

Today I open the Deoxys-EX Tin, I got it on ebay for £11.45. At the time of purchase this was a good price. Now, it's an even better price. These tins go for anywhere between £15-£18.

If you want to check out the video, click here.
Keep scrolling down if you want to see what pulls I got.

The tin itself.

This is the promo, part of the BW Black Star Promo collection.

(This picture was taken from Bulbapedia since I forgot to take a picture of my own like a numpty!) 

As you can see, I did not get the greatest of pulls.

Five rares is good, but none of them were holos or ultra rares.

So I'm not overly happy with my pulls this time round. I don't usually mind pulling rares if I don't have them already, but out of five rares I already own three of them.

Oh well, stick around and lets see if the next opening will be better ey! 

See you!

Trevenant - Furious Fists Triple Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with an opening for my PTCGOpA series!

This time round I've opened up a Trevenant blister pack for the Furious Fists expansion. I bought this one along with the Slurpuff blister pack for altogether £17.31 from Chaos Cards.

Click here if you want to see the video opening of this blister pack or simply scroll down below if you want to see the pulls I got.

The pack itself

The promo card, Trevenant XY14. I like the dark imagery, it goes well with the Pokémon's design and typing.

And here are the pulls I obtained. A Jynx, Pangoro and Gothitelle - all rares.

So sadly nothing special but they are all cards I needed to further my collection (even the Gothitelle that I originally thought I had already).

I do like the artwork where you see the Pokémon battling, they are very dynamic and a great homage to the overall franchise, cause you know, that's pretty much the point of it; monsters beating each other up!

I look forward to opening up more packs from this set and checking out more of the dynamic artwork.

And that's it for today's opening. A fairly straightforward one. 

Tune in next time to see if I open up anything more exciting!

Opening 24 XY Base Set Blister Packs

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here with another exciting opening of Pokémon TCG  merchandise. And I'm very excited for this one. I'm opening up an entire box of blister packs! Specifically, 24 blister packs for the XY Base Set.

I bought the box from iguk.co.uk for £43.59. It was originally £46.59 (already half the retail price) and I got a further £3 reduction which IGUK were kind enough to give to me due to a previous failed order.

Naturally due to the large amount of blister packs I opened I have LOADS of pictures to share with you guys, and had to break the opening into four separate videos, all of which you can watch here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

And here comes the swag!
Rares, reverse-holo rares, holos and ultra rares, there is a lot to show off!

These are all the rares I got. As you can tell I got a few repeats, but that's to be expected from an entire box of packs! I didn't actually have most of these though, so overall I'm happy with these ones.

I got 6 reverse-holo rares. Although I don't focus on completing reverse-holo sets, I'm always happy to get rares none the less!

Only four holographic cards sadly, but they are good ones! I'm especially fond of the Vivillon! I'm eager to get the alternate pattern Vivillon.

I got 4 ultra rare cards in this box. One of them, this Venusaur EX, was a double! Indeed I already pulled this guy not long ago.

(excuse the poor quality, just check the other picture in my other opening in the link above, it's the same type of card)

Here's an ultra I was happy to pull, Emolga-EX! Yes I know it is not worth much, but I love the rodent! One of my favourite electric types in the video game.

I got this wonderful card. This Yveltal-EX will compliment my Xerneas-EX nicely.

And last but not least...

Mega Blastoise-EX! With this card, I have both the Mega cards from this set. I'm very happy.

So although I got a few doubles in this box, I ended up getting many cards that I needed for my collection, putting me quite a few steps closer to completing this set. 

I was shocked to get so few holographic cards, even though I know the ratio for holos is low in XY, I didn't think I'd end up with only four - the EXACT same amount of ultra rares that I got. Which begs the question; what are their actual collectable value?

Either way, I'm very happy with what I got and look forward to opening up a whole booster box for this set! I wonder when that'll be? Stay tuned to find out =D

Garchomp-EX Collection Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here, opening up a Garchomp-EX Collection Box as part of my Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures series!

I ordered this box from Chaos Cards a while back while it was on pre-order special offer (it cost £14.45 and came with a free pack of sleeves!). The price for this box has since jumped up by about £4 from what I can tell.

This box had some fantastic pulls. If you can tolerate my rambling, I'd suggest checking out the box opening on my youtube channel!

If you don't fancy that however, just scroll down and check out the swag I got.

First off, the promotional cards! You get the Black Star Promo Garchomp-EX, number XY09 in the set.

The rares: A reverse-holo Rhyperior, a beautiful card despite featuring a Pokémon I'm not overly fond. I also got a rare Starmie and a holographic Gogoat (my second one in this adventure).

And here are my stars! TWO EXs!  A Venusaur-EX to compliment the M Venusaur-EX I got in the previous opening, and a Full Art Latios-EX! (actually my second one)

This was a great box! What can I say? I may have gotten some doubles, but they are great ones.

CAN'T WAIT FOR THE NEXT OPENING!

See you guys round!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2: Yveltal Collection Box

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector here.

Today I unbox the Yveltal Collection Box.
When I first heard of the Xerneas and Yveltal Collections boxes I was very excited. I loved the idea of getting my hands on some boxes that had both a Black Star promo and a collectable figurine in them. So imagine my surprise/disappointment when I found out that the merchandise released in the UK and the US was not going to be the same. Nope, according to EU regulations the figurines would not have been appropriate for children and so could not be sold here, too many sharp bits you see. Instead we get an alternate Yveltal/Xerneas Collection Box. One that is, in my opinion, not as cool. It comes with only 3 booster packs instead of 4, and worst yet, the figure is replaced with a Jumbo card of the exact same promo card that is available in the box.
It's very disappointing, but oh well. At least I get the promo card... that is the main reason I get these boxes.

I bought both the Yveltal and Xerneas Collection Boxes at the same time from cardteam.co.uk for £25.45. I'll open the Xerneas box at a later date.

And so here are my pulls! What wonderful pulls I get! (To make up for the lack of a figure I bet).
Check the video here or scroll down to see what I got.

The promos first:

Here is the Black Star Promo XY06; Yveltal! And next to it is its not quite identical brother, the Jumbo card.

As rares I got a reverse holo Simisear, looking very relaxed in its picture, and in contrast next to it is a very aggressive looking Arbok.

My first XY holo! Got myself a Gogoat. The sheen holographic goes very well with its pose. It looks as if rays of sun are shining down on an heroic Gogoat (reminds me of Lion King).

But the Gogoat isn't even the best part, oh no. I give you the true hero of this box:

Mega Venusaur-EX!!

Roawr!

So my initial disappointment was soon dissipated with an awesome pull. Mega Venusaur-EX really surprised me. And on top of that I also got a holo rare. I'd say that's not bad for only 3 booster packs =D

This has got me even more excited for this adventure. Lets continue!

See you in the next one, bye!

Pokémon TCG Opening Adventures 2: Luxray - Dark Explorers Triple Blister Pack

Hi all!

The Amateur Collector with an other PTCGOpA s02 update!
This time I've opened up a Luxray blister pack. It is from Dark Explorers; a set from the Black & White series which is actually quite hard to come-by now (individual booster packs go for £4 or more now!)
I bought this blister pack - along with another from the same series - for £8.95 each (the other blister pack will be opened at a later date) from online card game retailer cardteam.co.uk

I'll apologies beforehand, I forgot to take pictures of some of the content. The coin that comes with the blister pack and one of the rare cards from the opening.

If you want to see the opening click here (you'll be able to see all the swag I got from the blister)

First off, the promo:

The exckusive card that comes with the blister is not a BW Black Star Promo but in fact an alternate holographic of a card that is usually found in the Next Destinies set. This one in particular has the "Shard" pattern (you can see the triangles in the background that sparkle like shards of glass, hence the name for the pattern)

[this is a stock picture found online]

The rare I got was an Excadrill.

Out of three booster packs, I managed to get two holos, this is a very good pull!

Volcarona and Klinklang.

Out of the two I prefer Volcarona, but honestly I do find the artwork for both rather static, but I guess these mons are not exactly the most dynamic (they barely have any appendages!) 

I am very happy with these pulls, I have very few cards from the Dark Explorers collection and owned none of these ones, so they're all new to me!

I really look forward to opening up the next blister pack for Dark Explorers, hopefully I get an EX. But who knows when it'll be that I get to open it up, since all these openings are chosen through a raffle.

So tune in next time to see exactly which piece of merchandise I pick from the raffle. Bye!