Hardly had the ink dried on last week’s post about Nostalgia and its references to popular collectibles, than the Victoria Times Colonist reported, Nostalgia, seven-figure sales fuel wave of Pokemon card thefts across Canada.

The world-wide popularity of Pokemon cards is nothing less than phenomenal. —*Pokemon.avif*

I never did collect Pokemon cards and only dallied with baseball and other sports cards as a kid, although I have the vaguest recall of a series of third-dimensional cards that I somehow viewed through red cellophane. I can’t remember whose or what pictures were on them, but they definitely weren’t sports cards.

How valuable are Pokemon cards? In Durham, Ontario two years ago, a store worker was struck on the head by a thief escaping with $8,000 worth. And an Alberta store owner is out $18,000 in a theft last month.

You can blame it on nostalgia. “There’s a nostalgic appeal for some people,” University of Alberta business professor Utku Akkoc explained. “Even as a kid, I had Pokemon cards. I used to watch the original Pokemon show with my siblings, so for people above a certain age, it reminds them of those good old days.

“Research shows that when people feel nostalgic, they also spend or would like to spend money.”

Earlier this year, a single Pokemon card sold for a record $16.5 million!

For me, as a kid, money was tight, and even buying penny candy was often a challenge. I made up for it in later years by indulging in antiques which ultimately humbled me when I realized that toys and other items dating from my childhood had become collectible. What a shock. I was old.

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The Royal BC Museum has announced publication of a book honouring Hannah Maynard (1834-1918), “Victoria’s first female photo entrepreneur,” by Elizabeth Anne Cavaliere.

Hannah Maynard was a pioneer in every sense of the word—even in the darkroom where she experimented with multi-imagery and ‘selfies,’ doing things that, today, are commonplace and a snap with a computer, but were experimental, daring—and labour intensive—in her day.

In Hannah Maynard’s day, a photographic self-portrait and multiple imagery were *avante garde*. —*BC Archives*

According to author Cavaliere, “Hannah Maynard’s photographic practice was all-consuming and seeped into almost every facet of her life: her professional livelihood; leisurely bike rides; cottage excursions with her family; her relationships with her husband, children and grandchildren and her sensibilities about life and death.

“It is unique to have such a full visual record of one’s life and community as we have with Hannah Maynard in the collection of the Royal BC Museum.”

It was Hannah who, while serving as official photographer for the Victoria Police Department, created a mug shot file that became standard practice the world over.

Ms. Cavaliere launches her Maynard tribute this evening (October 1st) at the RBC, Victoria. It isn’t too late to register to attend for this free event at rbcm.ca/event/hannah-maynar-event.

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Friend and subscriber Bill Irvine is at it again—cycling with friends, most recently on “my” turf, the abandoned Tidewater line that runs, one property removed, past my house. I walk it almost every day.

Hello Tom,

Thank you for another good read in your BC Chronicles 9/24/26. You hit the nail-on-the-head with your lead:

"Working on the presumption that many Chronicles readers are middle-aged to seniors, here’s a glance into the near past, that of our own lifetimes."

Even I have great baseball memories which have no doubt been previously shared with you. I’ve included a link to my blog post.

On an unrelated matter, over the past months I’ve cycled by Firgrove Publishing a few times. The latest was last Sunday when I led our Bravehearts Cycling Group members (only four of us) up the Tidewater Subdivision Rail Trail (TWS) (you like to call it “grade”) back to Glenora beside the Trans Canada Trail (TCT).

It was part of a charity ride to Cowichan Station Creamery using Mountain Road as the outbound connector from the TCT. Using Koksilah Rd. to complete our 32km loop seemed the logical choice.

My fellow riders were amazed when they were shown the TWS trailhead hidden in the bushes beside where you live. After the ride at Glenora, they thanked me profusely for showing them this amazing 6.2km trail. I said:

The real thanks does to one Tom W. Paterson; British Columbia's most prolific writer and publisher of some 43 books [not quite there yet, Bill, but working on it—TWP] on BC’s history and a friend of mine. Were it not for Tom, I stated, I and many other users would not have known TWS exists.

For the world at large, the secret is out in my book, Historic Hikes, Sites & Sights of the Cowichan Valley. We who live here are blessed to have some of the best hiking trails and former railway grades on Vancouver Island.

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