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 Demetrius, follow @badmeowth on Instagram.
Fast Facts
Name: Demetrius Lewis
Age: 35
Location: Los Angeles, CA (USA)
Collects: Japanese cards, Staff cards, Illustration contest cards, Staff promo cards, Slowkings, Lugias
Crown Jewels: Nearly every first edition Japanese Gold Star card [PSA 10], Y. Fujishima Pikachu Art Academy Contest Winner card [PSA 10], Japanese Illusion’s Zorua/Zoroark set [PSA 10], Neo Promo Charizard [PSA 9] and Pichu [PSA 9]
Currently Seeking: Japanese Umbreon Gold Star PLAY promo card
Making Friends and Playing for Keeps
As an only child growing up in New Jersey, Demetrius's love for Pokémon grew roots in a desire for more interactive play to make friends. He would battle his classmates in playground card game matches, relishing how both the video games and TCG allowed kids to compete against each other in a way that felt fundamentally different from, say, joining little league baseball.
“We would have the cards out battling on the playground tables — and you played for keeps back in the day, right? So the stakes were high to try to win your matches,” he remembers. “I think my first card was like a Base Set common, a Machop, maybe. And then I had to try to figure out, ‘Okay, how am I going to build around this? What kind of battles are we gonna have?’”
To build his decks, he would scrounge money together to buy booster packs. He recalls riding his bike to the card shop buy Team Rocket and Gym Heroes. But his best childhood score? A Shining Mewtwo from Neo Destiny that came from an unlikely source. There was a vending machine in his local town library, and Demetrius snuck away from his parents after a sports game. "It was my one Neo Destiny booster pack and, lo and behold, I pulled the Shining Mewtwo — and I still have it to this day."
But at a certain point, his parents became worried about how much time he was spending on the hobby and they cut him off. The hiatus lasted from childhood all the way to grad school, when he started participating in local TCG games to unwind during his PhD work at Stanford. “I think I needed a distraction from the everyday reality of having to study for your comprehensive exams, writing a dissertation — l needed this game for a healthy escape!”
From there he started connecting with other local collectors in the Santa Clara area and joined online forums where he started coordinating trades digital trades. As he got to know the tournament rhythms, he put together a strategy: towards the end of each competitive season, he’d trade all of his meta decks to World Championship players in exchange for rare cards.
“Basically, imagine trading one Keldeo ex deck from 2012 for a PSA 10 Charizard Gold Star,” he explained. It sounds impossible now, but back then it was a common enough practice that it helped Demetrius jump start his own collection.
Connecting through Collecting
As Demetrius spent more time in the communities online, he started making more friends — including his friend Jason (@Pokecardzone). They've know been good friends for over a decade since meeting in Northern California. They'd get together to play the TCG and share about what they were trying to do with their collections — and to this day they swap advice to keep each other grounded. A trade with Jason set off one of the first sets Demetrius began collecting in earnest. After receiving a Japanese Gold Star Mew for a Japanese FireRed & LeafGreen Charizard ex (at a time when both of those cards were valued around $25-50), he sent the card off for grading — and it became the first Japanese Gold Star Mew PSA 10 ever graded.
Rather than sell it, Demetrius decided to hang on and eventually see if he could complete the entire set. Now, after many long nights scouring Yahoo! Japan and buying raw cards to send for grading himself, he's been successful. "I have every single first edition Japanese gold star PSA 10—as well as the PLAY promos—except for the Umbreon," he shares.
Many of Demetrius’s prized pieces carry similar stories of friendship and connection, like his Y Fujishima Pikachu from the 2015 Pokémon Art Academy Competition. Only 100 of each card are known to exist, and Demetrius got his as a gift from the winner’s father.
“He gave me one of the cards as a favor, because we had a great relationship and we were friends,” Demetrius recalled. Compared to stories of contest winners being hounded by would-be buyers offering wads of cash for the market, a gift build on a lasting friendship becomes especially precious, and Demetrius knows it. “I'm never going to sell that thing," he asserts, "and I'm going to cherish that forever.”
"My Nice Tanky Water Boy"
When it comes to landing on a favorite Pokémon, Demetrius has an unconventional favorite: Slowking. “My little hippo boy is how I usually demolish everyone in Pokémon Stadium, so it yields a special place in my heart," he explains. "My nice tanky water boy is just gonna come in, cast Psychic, take all the hits and do exactly what I need him to do." He continues, “I just love how goofy that whole evolution is. I think it was one of their more creative ones. And it's a unique favorite, right? So usually people have Mewtwo, Pikachu, Charizard, but I'm gonna go a little offbeat, to something a little off the beaten path. I love that.”
And yes, you read correctly when Demetrius said Pokémon Stadium. "I still play Pokemon Stadium. I have my N64 at my apartment. Gold and Silver is still loaded into the cartridge ready to go. Whenever someone comes into my house for a pregame or an afterparty, they know we're having a match of Stadium before." And hearkening back to Gold and Silver, Demetrius admits that Lugia, the legendary bird introduced with the Johto region, also ranks as a close contender for his favorite. "Lugia ex from Unseen Forces is one of my favorite cards of all time," he shares. "It's just a great-looking card, and I always kept a few of them on hand."
Advice for Collectors
His advice to collectors? Take your time, figure out what you really enjoy, and above all else, focus on the connections you make rather than the idea of making it big. "I'm very busy, obviously, being a researcher and a professional too," he shares. "I just enjoy it for the sake of having fun, for collecting, for interacting with people and for having community. That way it's not stressful. It's a nice, nice way to interact with a great community of people that share similar interests." And to Demetrius, that's also the secret to keeping a passion for the hobby alive. "When I talk to people that have been around the hobby for a much longer period of time — like at least 10 years, even 20 years — and who have alternative careers, it really is mostly just a hobby for them, as opposed to those who prioritize spitting out content and making hot deals for people to see. Those other people are way more stressed. They're not having fun.”
“The good friends that I've made doing this are much more important than any card that's in my collection, and that's gonna matter much more to me,” he explains. “It's about prioritizing getting to know people, having real substantive conversations that aren't transactional. When you go about it with that kind of attitude, I think people see that you're genuine, you're for real. That'll attract the right kind of people around you. And that's really what you want at the end of the day."
