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Unfortunately, as I started looking into Delibird, it became apparent that I would need to talk about something else for two important reasons. First, there have only been 8 Delibird cards released thus far in the TCG. Two of those cards were from the Japanese exclusive VS set, but that alone didn't strike me as enough material for a whole regional differences article. Second, as I poured through google images of Delibird, I started to notice an alarming trend.
WHY IS HE SALUTING LIKE THAT?
I mean seriously. Is the Pokemon version of Santa Claus also a Nazi? If so, I don't want any part of that. Instead, let's talk about a fairly rare product that better encapsulates the holiday season:
The Pokemon Countdown Calendar
Background
Released in October 2008, the Countdown Calendar was the first, and so far, only advent calendar released for the Pokemon TCG. Each day during the month of December, the calendar owner would punch open the appropriate slot in the calendar and pull out a promo card to help count down the days remaining until Christmas. Each card in the calendar was a reprint of a card from the early Diamond and Pearl era sets, with a gold snowflake hologram stamp appearing as a set symbol in the bottom right corner of the card art.
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On Christmas Eve, calendar owners were rewarded with a holofoil Pikachu card and diamond and pearl era booster pack. The Pikachu card was a reprint of black star promo DP16 with a silver, rather than gold, snowflake stamp. My personal complete set of the Countdown Calendar is below, in the order they appeared in the advent calendar.
Per bulbapedia, the Countdown Calendar was only released in a handful of countries, including Canada (available exclusively at Canadian Toys R' Us stores), Germany, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. I have also seen an Italian version of the Countdown Calendar Pikachu on Italian eBay, so its possible, and perhaps even likely, that the set saw release in additional languages. If you have additional information about the international release of this product, please leave me a note in the comments.
The Countdown Calendar is perhaps the essential holiday Pokemon TCG product, but like Delibird, it has a bit of a dark side.
First, as a result of the limited nature of its release and its fairly limited production, buying a sealed Countdown Calendar can cost several hundred dollars. That being said, opened Countdown Calendar sets can usually be purchased at a greatly reduced cost. The high mark-up for the sealed product does make some sense in this context, after all, the entire point of the product is to open a card a day to celebrate the advent season. Buying a previously opened set will require some patience, especially if you live in the United States, as these collections seem to only infrequently show up on eBay.
Second, finding cards from the Countdown Calendar in even near mint condition can be very difficult. Until I opened my own Countdown Calendar a few years ago, I wasn't sure why it was so hard to find these cards in decent condition. When I took a look at my own box, the reason became woefully and readily apparent. Take a look below.
Each little cardboard slot is supposed to contain one of the Countdown Calendar promos. The middle slot contained the Pikachu and Christmas Eve booster pack. As you can see in the picture, each cardboard slot has three little teeth like points. From what I can tell, these points are supposed to keep the cards from slipping out of their respective slot. That seems fine in theory, but in practice, these things are worse than useless. When my box arrived, it was immediately apparent that several cards had become dislodged in transit. These teeth did nothing more than dent and scratch several of the cards in the box as it was delivered to my address. If you do intend on opening your own Countdown Collection, be very, very careful when opening the product and be aware that the chances of opening a full set without condition flaws is extraordinarily slim.
Thanks for reading this week's edition of Regional Differences. You can check out the previous posts in this series by clicking the links below. Let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions for the next regional difference to cover.
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