The Card That Started It All
It wasn’t supposed to be valuable. It wasn’t even supposed to be kept.
In 1999, Chris was 8 years old and obsessed with anything that had a lightning bolt or a dragon. On a random Saturday, he tore open a foil pack from the local corner shop. Inside was something shiny. A First Edition Holographic Zapdos.
Chris didn’t know what it was. He just thought it looked cool.
He carried it around in his lunchbox, showed it to his friends at recess, and one day—he left it in the grass under the jungle gym.
It rained that night.
Years passed. Pokémon cards went in and out of boxes, attics, and forgotten shelves. But the memory of that card? It never left. Not because of what it was worth (he later learned it could have fetched hundreds in mint condition), but because it marked the first time an object felt more than just a toy. It became part of a story.
Today, collectors hunt for cards like Zapdos not just for rarity, but for nostalgia, for meaning, for that tiny spark of recognition that says, “I remember.”
Sometimes, it’s not the card itself—but the feeling it held.