The Boot-Legacies

I began getting back into collecting Pokémon trading cards with a quest: to collect every Mew ever. I figured it would be an undertaking of sorts, all of the Mew cards I could find, all of the strange, the official, the unofficial, the custom ones, the non-tcg cards. All of the Mews. Of course I began to attend local card shows, hoping to fulfill my Mew fantasies (which I did somewhat).  One particular vendor I had visited had a fun derpy shining mew parody card, a custom one with star-foiling, not a bootleg, but fun either way. Of course it had to go into the collection. That same vendor had a little cardboard box filled with these glittery, extremely thick and somewhat small cards - maybe not necessarily small, but I guess more square than a regular (standard size) card.  Of course I immediately began to look at all of them hoping to find my beloved Mew. Each one I browsed past, cute baby-ified pocket monsters, small, chibi, most likely stolen art, but adorable regardless - ...

It all began as a young child, I begrudgingly browsed local flea markets and farmer's markets, absolutely not impressed by much - I mean, which kids are? Fruits, veggies... lame.  Of course that was how it began, but I was remiss to find that at almost every single one of these pop up events, little treasures were buried among the lameness - tucked somewhere, usually at the end of these event lineups, in brown boxes that sat on the ground. Shining like gold in the distance. That was exactly where it started, right there in those boxes.  Cheap Beyblades Weird overly foil-y Pokémon trading card packs (including strange mixtures of characters that absolutely should not have been together) Endless Yu-Gi-Oh cards Bootleg Bakugan (those have a nice ring to them) For a kid? All these toys? I was hooked! Of course I begged for them... and I was promptly met with  "Those are chintzy, you don't want those."  Pulled away and denied. It was a true tragedy. From there of course ...