My name is Frank, I’m 29 years old and living in The Netherlands. I write software for a living, and after work you can sometimes find me gaming and often I’m collecting cards and opening boxes. The latter is exactly what the blog will be about.

As a kid I collected Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards and also played with them. As an adult I returned to collecting Pokemon at first, at around 2016. Later on I diverged into Magic the Gathering.
Then in 2020-2021 I learned about the Topps Chrome Formula 1 cards and also started collecting those as I’m a big Formula 1 fan, as well as Star Wars cards. And recently I added Flesh and Blood to the list as it seems like a very promising game with great cards too!

This blog is called The Realistic Collector as I want to show everyone the “darker” side of collecting too. What collectors these days see is for example YouTube videos with a huge emphasis on the best pulls and also Instagram posts with only the very best pulls. Usually it is also unclear how many packs or boxes it took to get those hits, it could’ve been dozens! Not exactly realistic for most collectors, is it?
That’s why I will give full disclosure about what I have opened and what the hits are, and also put emphasis on not only the monetary value but also on the cards which bring me the best enjoyment.

So you can find posts about box openings here, but I’ll also share some of my cool purchases and from time to time I’ll give me opinion about the state of the market for various collectibles.
Hopefully this blog will be an useful resource to many of you!