On April 25, I went to the East Bay Card Show in Santa Clara as my first ever actual card show and it went pretty well with a medium-sized question mark.

For those who don’t know what a card show is, it is an event where multiple vendors and collectors meet up to do trading, selling or buying trading cards. It consists of predominantly Pokemon Cards, but there are some other options, like some vendors selling signed Sabrina Carpenter and Mike Tyson items alongside photocards of other artists. Baseball cards are still in. I saw a couple of vendors selling but most people are here for Pokemon Cards.


It’s a real market where the average Joe Schmoe could earn money from high valued cards like Illustration Rares (IR), Special Illustration Rares (SIR), Hyper Rares (HR) and other higher rarities. Point is that you could theoretically earn from this but it requires the worst requirement of all, Luck, you see in order to get money from Pokemon Cards you have to get lucky and hope you get a card worth something after that you would go to a card show to either sell it for 80% values or trade it for a card you actually want or if your card is high value enough you can trade for for unsealed products.

I’ll use myself as an example i opened a pack of Pokemon’s Ascended Heroes and pulled a Fezandipiti EX SIR the week of the card show and because of Fezanadipiti’s story from Pokemon Scarlet/Violet i think they are a bum so when i saw this card was like 80ish dollars and i didnt want this loser so i traded the card for a booster bundle and a trainer card.

These card shows are only possible thanks to the community that surrounds this fanbase as local vendor @Erika_Invitation adds “it just it’s a very tight-knit community i feel like you start meeting people around the bay area you can span to like other places like LA as well and yeah it’s just pretty overall awesome”

I did feel that sense of community while I was over there because none of the vendors made me feel intimidated. I could just walk up and ask if they had any card I was looking for and felt satisfied after.

I also noticed that some cards from a few months to a year ago were significantly cheaper than they were at their peak so I asked Big Don about how the market works and he adds ‘It’s a simple supply and demand chain. It’s nothing more than that. And as they keep releasing or re-releasing cards and characters, it becomes easier to get a certain card.’ With that knowledge I will keep myself from buying a single at peak popularity as I found an Ethan’s Typhlosion IR for $12 dollars and I swear this card was going for like $60 at release so I’m glad I found such a great card for a great value.

I also wondered while roaming if the vendors do this fulltime and @PokiCenter.TCG and they provided with “I have a regular 9-5 outside of this so this is really a side thing we do” which put thing into perspective for me as i never thought of people still doing this as a hobby while being employed.
I had a blast going to this event and my binder has tons of cards im happy with thanks to the multiple vendors i went to that weekend and my trainer card collection continues.