In our Collector Feature series, we highlight collectors of all kinds and share the stories, passion and advice that have shaped their collections.
For more from Austin, follow him on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X.
Fast Facts
Name: Austin Evans
Age: 31
Location: Los Angeles, California
Collects: Sealed Pokémon TCG & games, occasional individual slabs
Crown Jewels: Base Set 2 Charizard, Holon Phantoms gold-star Pikachu, Dragon Frontiers gold-star Charizard, vintage sealed packs
Currently Seeking: Skyridge Gyarados
“At six years old, I decided that I like tech, cars and Pokémon,” Austin Evans begins, “and nearly 20 years later, those are still my three favorite things.”
You may know Austin from his 2,000+ high-energy videos reviewing technology, building PCs and consoles and testing online services. He began his YouTube channel in 2009, and over the last fifteen years he’s built out not only an audience, but also a team and media company of his own. “We hopefully teach you something along the way,” Austin says of his videos, “but most importantly, we give you a fun, entertaining way to experience tech the way that we all get to play with every day.”
But alongside his love for technology, Austin’s always nurtured a passion for Pokémon. And while you don’t always see it front-and-center in his videos (except for that time he built a Pokémon PC for Leonhart!), the cards are never far away, and they even play a role in his video production: “We keep booster boxes all over the office because before every video we all crack a pack of whatever we've got,” Austin shares. “Someone pulls a great card and it gets all hype, then we shoot the videos.”
Memories Then and Now
Austin’s history with Pokémon is filled with significant memories—and he lights up remembering moments both from his childhood and the Pokémon revival during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Between the age of six and even into my early teenage years, I didn’t have a lot of money to buy a lot of games,” he shares of his beginnings with Red. “Pokémon was this safe, happy place for me.”
”There are so many great memories I have of playing those games,” he reflects, speaking of happy evenings playing his Game Boy in the backseat of the family car, waiting to pass under streetlights (for those newer to the game, the original Game Boys didn’t have backlit screens) and sneaking game-link trades with classmates at recess. And while the cards were a more social activity—“everyone had a pocket full of cards”—things didn’t always go so smoothly.
“I legitimately got beat up once when I traded with a guy at school,” he shares. ”I think it was an Arcanine for a Golduck. And he came back to me and said, ‘Hey, my girlfriend really likes that card. Give it back to me.’ I didn't want to give it to him, so he literally punched me and took the card.” Yet despite that experience, Austin still looks back on it fondly. “It was a great memory! Everyone was just really passionate about it.”
And for Austin, like many, there was a profound sense of joy and validation when the Pokémon TCG experienced a revival during the pandemic in 2020-2021. “Everyone was talking Pokémon all the time and it expanded very, very quickly,” he shares, describing how the feeling as “Oh yes, everyone's back into the thing that I used to love.”
During those pandemic years, Austin found himself making surprising new memories, too. He recalls standing in line for hours on Saturday mornings outside of the Frank and Son collectibles show, waiting for his slot to enter and interact with other collectors amid COVID restrictions.
And then after lockdowns lifted but the passions were still alive, Austin was ready to go. “There were times where my friend and I camped outside of Walmart because we knew they were going to have a restock,” he shares. “There were like 20 of us, random people waiting outside. And when the distributor came in, there was a Black Friday style rush of people trying to swipe the boxes. Those are gonna be the memories that I think about 10 or 20 years from now.”
Squirtle, I Choose You!
Throughout his memories, though, one Pokémon has always been Austin's go-to: the tiny turtle Pokémon and classic starter, Squirtle.
”I thought Red was a cooler color,” Austin shares of those first pivotal decisions he made at age six, “but Squirtle was my number-one dude.” And his love for Squirtle continues into the TCG, although Austin argues there are far too few cards with art that do him justice. “The Team Rocket Squirtle that shows him swimming down underwater, that's such a cool card,” he emphasizes.
And now that Austin has a young son of his own, Squirtle has found his way back into his life in surprising new ways. As they rewatch certain episodes from the first season of the original anime together, Here Comes the Squirtle Squad has been a favorite on repeat. “There are some things that I have great, fond memories of—and then as an adult, you revisit them and realize they don’t hold up at all,” Austin shares. “But I can watch that Squirtle Squad episode every week for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks on end, and I will enjoy it every single time. There’s something really special about that.”
A Sealed Collection
As a collector, Austin sadly no longer has the original cards he collected when he was young. “Back in 2014, I had an apartment fire, and so I lost all my old stuff,” he recalls. But that same incident, unexpectedly, also got him collecting again. “One of the very first things I did after that fire, I went up to a game shop and I bought myself a Base Set Two Charizard,” he explains. “I wanted to rebuild the collection a little bit. It's not something that I actually had from childhood. I never pulled a Base 'Zard. But now I look at it makes me smile.”
While Austin has a small set of individual cards that he loves for their meaning to him or the unlikely stories behind them, most of his energy goes to collecting sealed items—a passion that originally started not with cards, but with games.
“The launch of Pokémon Black and White was the first time I was like, ‘hey, you know what? I'm gonna buy a copy of the game, and then when I see it on sale, I'm gonna go ahead and swipe a sealed copy and just keep it in the collection.’ So from around the Nintendo DS era, I started collecting sealed copies of the games and Special Edition consoles when I could afford them,” he shares. “I also have a fair amount of limited edition things like Pokémon cereal boxes and random bits and bobs, but now the majority of the collection is definitely in cards, especially over the last four or five years.”
When asked what he sees as the appeal of sealed product, Austin highlights the sense of mystery—as well as what he sees as a patient, pragmatic investment. “It makes me smile knowing that I don't know what's inside—but I don't want to know,” he explains. “While those boxes are sealed, they could be anything. But as soon as I open up that Evolving Skies box and realize that there's literally nothing rare at all inside, I'm gonna be real sad. So I almost like the idea or the theory of it more.”
“When I open one, I know that that's gonna be really impactful the same way that opening a Base Set box would be so much cooler now than it was back when it was brand new,” Austin continues. “I get to enjoy the collection by staring at it and knowing what I've got in there. And then at some point, I will be able to open them up with my son and have a good time with it. But it feels like the more patient I can be, the better the reward will become. It’s just marinating and getting better and better every year.”
Advice to Collectors
“Ultimately, I think the thing that's most impactful is collecting what you love, and whether it’s a Pokémon, whether it's a set, whether it's an era, that makes your collecting journey so much more meaningful,” Austin shares, reflecting on his own journey as a collector. For me, there's a handful of Pokémon. If there's a new Blaziken or Lanturn or any of my favorite old weirdo Pokémon that aren’t always valuable, I'm going to hunt down that card. It's very motivating.”
And for those just starting to collect, Austin offers the following advice: “Just think about what you like, and try to the best of your ability to make that your priority. You don't always have to spend a bunch of money to get a freaking PSA 10 of everything. Look for the stuff that you really enjoy and collect stuff that makes you happy.”
“To me, there's a lot more joy to be found in the unusual,” he shares. “The more unusual, the weirder, the cooler stuff that has a personal story—that’s why we collect, right? It's to tell stories, to connect with people you know, to share a memory and create a special occasion.”
