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My son’s pre-Kindergarten teacher started handing out Pokémon cards to all the kids right before pickup. This ignited a small frenzy among all the kids, and my son got hooked on everything Pokémon. Netflix has the first 52 episodes of the Indigo League, and he loves those.

The series started in 1997 and is based on the first Pokémon Blue and Red games and only uses the first 151 Pokémon (from Bulbasaur to Mew) as material. The anime-card game symbiosis resulted in my son mainly being interested in cards portraying one of those first 151 Pokémon.

The newest TGC (trading card game) series that you can find in shops like Target, Best Buy, Walmart, and local independent game shops contain a selection of Pokémon from all 1025 species, released over the last 28 years in 9 generations of video games. This means you can find Pokémon like Vulpix, which was part of the first 151, in newer packs, but The Pokémon Company deliberately keeps certain fan favorites out. After a couple of episodes on Netflix, Bulbasaur was a family favorite, and my son really wanted a Bulbasaur card. None of the latest card series contained Bulbasaur except the one called Scarlet and Violet 151, which was a re-release of the original 151 Pokémon in an up-to-date format. Because of the incredible nostalgia for these Pokémon, this card series is hard or even impossible to get in the stores mentioned before, and online the packs of cards sell for significantly more than their contemporaries.

Much to my surprise, however, Costco of all places started selling 151 cards – of course in Costco quantities. The pack they are selling contains 3 boxes: one 151 Elite Trainer box and two Paldea Legends tins for $78 after tax. It boasts a total of 18 booster packs (9 from the 151 series and 9 from the Paldea Legends series), plus a lot of extra goodies like special foil cards, status tokens, energy cards, card seals for protection, a coin flip die, and damage counter dies. For comparison, the 151 Elite Trainer box alone goes for $54.99 before tax on Amazon, while each Paldea Legends tin goes for $17.99 before tax on Amazon (sum $90.97 before tax). This makes for a great deal and a bargain way to access those high-demand Pokémon cards from the first 151 that are so hard to find or stockpile the sealed boxes for future resale.