There’s an almost bewildering number of different Pokemon products released each year. Though many are fairly easy to understand the purpose of (such as booster packs and theme decks), there’s also some that might not be so obvious.
Among examples of the latter are Pokemon Tins. There’s a number of different types of Pokemon Tins too, with different shapes and even slightly different contents, which only makes things more complicated and confusing. However, we here at Card Gamer are here to assist you with getting into what each Pokemon Tin contains, as well as why they are (or might not be!) a good fit for your own collection, or for the Pokemon fan in your family!
So, with different type of tin available and each containing different combinations of booster packs and accessories, here’s each one in turn, listed from largest to smallest, with details of what we think the advantages and disadvantages are of each type.
1. Collector Chest Tins
- Retail Price: $29.99/£24.99
- Where To Buy: Amazon & Pokemon
- Our Thoughts: A great entry product to collecting with a bunch of accessories.
These are the largest and most stuffed tins in terms of their content; they have cards, booster packs and numerous accessories too. Inside a Collector Chest, you’ll find: five booster packs (these will be from recently released sets, but the exact quantity of each booster pack type is not guaranteed, so for example you may have 2 Shrouded Fable packs, 1 Temporal Forces and 2 Paldean Fates, though this wouldn’t necessarily be the case for another tin of the same type), foil cards featuring the Pokemon shown on the tin (these will be the same for each tin of the same type), a Pokemon coin, 4 sticker sheets, a mini portfolio ‘binder’ for storing a small number of cards, a notebook and, finally, a code card to unlock cards on the digital version of the Pokemon TCG, Pokemon Live.
These offer pretty good value for money, with a decent amount of cards, given that each booster pack contains 10 cards. Pokemon coins are a nice little bonus collectible, which also have a practical use in-game (deciding the first player and the outcome of using certain abilities during play), and the mini portfolio is also a good, if short term, way of storing your favourite cards. For the record, for long term storage of cards that you still want to be able to access, check out our guide to the best trading card binders.
Though inessential, the stickers and journal are also appealing, somewhat unique inclusions in Collector Chests. One thing we would say that Collector Chests are great for is storing bulk cards. All Pokemon Trading Card Game (or TCG, as it’s often abbreviated) fans know that it’s extremely easy to build up a collection of piles of common cards; with their resale value being so low and many often not used when building decks, it can be hard to know what to do with them, or where to store these cards.
So with the Collector Chest being such a good size, it’s perfect for storing plenty of your bulk cards. We wouldn’t recommend it for the rare Pokemon cards in your collection, as this method of storage won’t guarantee that your cards are fully protected, but for storing the low value bulk cards, it’s perfect.
2. Hexagonal Tins
- Retail Price: $19.99/£19.99
- Where To Buy: Amazon
- Our Thoughts: Great for packs from different sets & storage inside the tin.
These tins are the next size down from Collector Chests, and you may find them in slightly different sizes, but the key feature that unites them is that they are all hexagonal. These tins contain five packs (what set they’re from will be specified on the packaging) and a foil promo card, which can be seen via the window on the tin itself.
This is a great product if you want to pick up a selection of packs from a set, along with a specific promo card that’s quite often powerful and useful to add to a deck (or even just to add to your collection as a special card). For example, the Paldean Fates tins contain five booster packs each (as you’d expect, these are specifically Paldean Fates booster packs), plus the choice of either an Iron Treads ex card or Great Tusk ex card, depending on which tin you buy. Each of these cards shows the Pokemon as a Shiny variant, which means that they’re depicted with stars in the background, and each Pokemon is in a different colour to its standard counterpart.
These tins are also useful for storing bulk cards, and with the advantage of having a window, you can even peek in to see what’s being stored. Do note that some hexagonal tins, depending on your region, may contain only four packs, and some have a slightly different shape too. Always read the back of the tin, just to be certain of what you’ll find inside!
3. Pokeball Tins
- Retail Price: $19.99 – $24.99/£19.99 – £24.99
- Where To Buy: Amazon
- Our Thoughts: An affordable gift that looks great displayed in a bedroom/games room.
Though these tins are appealing in terms of their overall design, and look great when displayed, they’re not particularly practical for storing cards in. However, we’ve found a good use for these Pokeball shaped tins, in using them to store accessories such as damage counters, status condition tokens, Pokemon coins and damage dice.
So what will you find in a Pokeball tin? Despite the differences in their design, with each tin coloured and styled to represent a different type of Pokeball from the Pokemon video games and anime, you’ll find three booster packs (the set these belong to can and likely will vary, with no specific set’s packs guaranteed to be in any given Pokeball) and a Pokemon coin.
Though they tend to be a relatively cheap way of getting a bundle of three packs (cost wise, they’re generally slightly cheaper than buying three boosters separately), with no way of guaranteeing what packs are in the Pokeball tin, it’s a bit of a gamble compared to just buying the boosters you want.
With the shape of the tin not making it practical to store loose cards either, this is probably the Pokemon TCG tin that we’d rate the least favourably of all. Though you may sometimes find booster packs from older sets in these tins, and they do look good as display pieces, from a practical standpoint they aren’t a good product for Pokemon fans in general.
4. Stacking Tins
- Retail Price: $21.99/£19.99
- Where To Buy: Amazon
- Our Thoughts: Not the best bang for your buck, but these tins are easier to store.
In terms of content, the squarer shaped stacking tins are not too different from Pokeball tins; however, along with the three booster packs, instead of a coin, you’ll find two sticker sheets included. It’s not a great loss to not have a coin, as most Pokemon fans, unless they’re very new to the game, will have a number of coins laying around (and not likely to be used in games for the most part!).
The shape of these tins and their stacking design makes them much more practical in general, as they’ll hold cards (however, note that we’d suggest only storing bulk Pokemon cards, such as standard, non-foil common and uncommon cards, in these tins) and, of course, they’re designed to stack on top of each other too.
With the price being around $15, it’s also not too different from simply buying three packs; do bear in mind, however, that like many of the tins on this list, you can’t guarantee exactly which packs you’ll find in each tin, so it can be a bit of a gamble as to what you’ll receive. It certainly can be the case, as with numerous other tins on this list, that you might find older and less currently available booster packs in these tins in the wild, but it’s not guaranteed that this will be the case, by any means.
5. Mini Tins
- Retail Price: $9.99/£8.99
- Where To Buy: Amazon
- Our Thoughts: A great starter gift featuring two packs and stickers
The final type of tin on our list is the Mini Tin, and these are, for the price, not a bad product at all. Within each tin, you’ll find two booster packs, and an art card that’ll match the illustration on the tin. You’ll sometimes get a Pokemon coin or a sticker sheet in the tin too.
Each tin’s design is part of a larger illustration, which you can piece together by collecting all of the tins in that specific set. Though some tins can contain two random booster packs, others feature specific boosters; for example, the Shrouded Fable set‘s booster were not released individually, and though you couldn’t buy boosters as single packs, the cheapest way to get boosters was via mini tins, with two Shrouded Fable packs in each tin.
Though you can store cards in mini tins, they are by far the smallest type of tin available and, as such, won’t hold much of your bulk. However, they’re a neat item for collectors, particularly if you can get all five in any given set; with the art cards included, you can put together the illustration for display purposes, as well as have a selection of packs and tins for storage. The fact that some sets don’t have individual boosters, with these mini tins providing the cheapest way to get hold of boosters for those sets, makes the non-random versions of the mini tin much more appealing than others.
For sets where booster packs are available separately and as singles, you’re likely far better off buying just the booster packs that you need, rather than a mini tin.
