New collector from the UK looking for help and information on where you look for singles (And other questions regarding general collecting)

Where to buy: So first of all, where exactly are people finding shops in the UK that sell singles, I'm not very far from Birmingham (Obviously not going into too many details) and the singles scene here seems bleak from a lot of googling, and the shops I have found seem to be WAY overcharging. So is it just a case of ordering singles online? So I can give a breakdown as to why I feel a little disheartened by this, I will explain what I'm trying to accomplish. Goal: So for my first set I decided to collect all the Psychic types that have released, doesn't matter which version, mainly just wanna go for cool arts and slowly upgrade as I find things over time, as it stands I'm working on a budget going into this thing just to get my feet wet to start. Now here's the thing, I was hoping I would be able to finish the initial set off with bundles of randoms or randomly coming across a single I need in a shop somewhere, but as you can probably imagine, that's gonna be very bleak considering the situation I just explained about the overcharging shops, or the fact that most people who sell bundles are usually only really giving you a quarter what it's really worth, sometimes less.. Binders: Now a question about binders, a friend of mine got into my head about top loaders and how some binders will tend to bend your cards, so I decided to go one above this and decided to get myself a top loader binder, did I just kind of get ahead of myself and make a huge mistake? because from what I researched it seems like I've gone overkill as it's usually one or the other.. Sets to collect for a new collector (Particular pokemon): After I have finished my psychic types I wanted to move onto something a bit more.. Honed in lets say? So the age old question I want to ask, what's a good pokemon to collect for a person like myself who's new to this stuff, but also likes the idea of collecting one single pokemon? Now to make this question a little less "Broad" lets say, my favourite pokemon are as follows: Gengar, Houndoom, Mimikyu, Umbreon, Tyranitar, Rayquaza (How could I not), Darkrai, Trevanant, and a few others that right now are slipping my mind since I've been awake all night researching. Now I understand the obvious answer is just "Collect one of your favourites" however the reason I'm a little put off by this is because, as you can probably see from my list of favourites, they're a little pricey due to the fact they're fairly popular pokemon, or usually just end up rarer of most of the sets. So I'm curious as to what you would think would be a good pokemon to start collecting? I'm very partial to full arts, I'm really not that bothered by Holos, I'm bothered by cool arts.. I do hear that Eeveelutions are a good one, the only reason I'm not really drawn to this is mainly because of the cost of some of those cards... MAJOR oof on the moonbreon Finally: If you made it to this point, then first of all, thank you for taking the time to read this essay, secondly, I hope you had a nice holiday. TLDR: Where to get singles in the UK preferably near Birmingham, trying to collect psychics through bundles (Wondering how viable), Toploaders in binders being overkill, Sets to collect, and finally: Thank you and I Hope you had a nice holiday. submitted by /u/MrMadakey [link] [comments]