Section of the collectible 54 trading card set from LOONA's concert "[LOONAVERSE : FROM]".Photo courtesy of Taylor of 'Kpopcds'

Seoul to Scotland: The collection of a K-pop Connoisseur

The ‘korean wave’ has spread K-pop all over the world. In one of several articles dedicated to Korean pop culture, we chatted to Taylor of ‘Kpopcds’ , a fanatic and passionate Scottish collector. Taylor gives us a rundown of the latest merchandise and fandom trends in international pop culture’s most innovative scene.

Girls Generation Music Video

I was surprised to find that Korean albums weren’t like the jewel cases we get here in the UK. Instead, there was no set format on packaging and almost every album came with a photobook with numerous pictures of the artist – some with even 100+ pages of photos.

Some albums also included collectible trading cards known as “photocards” which featured a photo of the artist. In each album you’d get one random photocard and generally there was 1 card per member to collect for groups or 1-2 cards to collect for solo artists.

Merchandise can also be quite tricky to find as it’s not always sold online and might be limited to an in-store event and for a limited time.

Taeyeon’s (from Girls’ Generation) “I” vinyl – her debut solo mini album (which can now sell for up to £1500.00). Photo courtesy of Taylor of ‘Kpopcds’

What size is your collection and what is it made up of?

At the moment I currently have around 1,200 albums, photobooks and live concerts in my K-Pop collection and 400+ merchandise items – everything from lightsticks (uniquely designed lights groups sell for fans to use and show their support at concerts and events), fanclub subscription kits, poster sets, keyrings, postcards, event tickets, stickers, hoodies etc. – and even a camping chair!

I’ve lost count of the number of photocards I’ve collected over the years but probably have around 4-5 thousand between cards I’ve intentionally collected and others I have just from them being included with an album I’ve purchased.

In the last few years, the number of photocards included with albums has increased substantially. It’s not uncommon for there to be 10+ photocards to collect per member across different versions of the album, each with their own unique ‘concept’ and photoshoot.

Lastly, I have around 100 Polaroids and most of them are signed. Within the collecting community Polaroids are often seen as the “holy grail” as each one is unique. Polaroids are generally only given out at certain events or given away as prizes so they can be relatively difficult to get your hands on. Depending on the group and member they can cost $1000/£850 at the higher end just for one Polaroid photo.

Example of a fansign album page and signed Polaroid. They are often blurred/watermarked to avoid replication. Photo courtesy of Taylor of ‘Kpopcds’

How does the industry involve their fans?

K-pop artists generally hold ‘fansign’ events for fans in Korea. If you purchase your album from a specific store during a certain time period you can enter for the fansign and have the opportunity to attend an event where you meet the artist and have them sign your album for you.

Artists in Korea also generally have an official ‘fan cafe’ where updates are posted regarding new releases and the artist’s schedule etc. So, the information on store events are posted there and the store will likely announce it through their own social media as well.

These events are generally held as a raffle – so the more albums you purchase, the greater the chance of being one of the 100 or so people that are picked to attend the fansign.

However, it was impossible to hold these events at the start of the pandemic and artists switched to doing video call events instead run in partnership between the artist and different stores within Korea. Instead of meeting the artist face-to-face you’d get to talk to them over video call instead. To incentivise the event, bonus photocards (known within the collecting community as POBs or ‘pre-order bonuses’) are given to all applicants even if they don’t win the event. This opened fansigns up globally which in turn caused an increase in the number of people running group orders.

What is a group order manager?

In the K-pop collecting world ‘group orders’ are fan-run bulk orders. Instead of buying your album directly from a store in Korea and receiving a sealed copy, you might consider buying through a ‘group order’ (or ‘GO’) instead.

GOs are likely run by a fan of that artist – the ‘group order manager’ (or ‘GOM’) – who will be the one organising everything. You’ll pay them for the album and they’ll then bulk buy the number of albums requested from all of the joiners. The albums will all be delivered to the GOM who will then unseal all of the copies (unless someone has requested sealed albums) and then will try and allocate the photocards as best as they can to everyone in the group order – trying to give everyone their favourite member’s photocard(s).

I’m best known as a LOONA ‘group order manager’ on Instagram and on YouTube by association. I’ve run group orders for the majority of their albums and merchandise releases since October 2020. Over the past few months my group order joiners (133 people from 18 countries) and I have purchased 1,800 copies of their latest album “[Flip That]” across 24 events (11 video call fansigns and 13 other events where the store gave bonus collectible photocards).

MAMAMOO and Girls’ Generation albums including the nine individual member versions of “I Got a Boy”.Photo courtesy of Taylor of ‘Kpopcds’

Taylor of Kpopcds most treasured items!
A signed copy of LOONA member Choerry’s self-titled solo debut single “Choerry”. As I mentioned earlier, around mid-2017 I decided to collect all things LOONA and I wanted to collect signed copies of all of their albums. Choerry was the 8th member to be revealed and I hadn’t had any issues getting signed copies of the others. I guess LOONA’s company didn’t send out as many promo copies of Choerry’s CD as they’re definitely the hardest to come across. The album was released in July 2017 and I didn’t find one until December 2018. I know of only 2 other collectors who own a genuine promo signed copy of that CD.

Not Choerry but artist IU’s photobook “LILAC” along with the corresponding poster.Photo courtesy of Taylor of ‘Kpopcds’
A signed copy of SoRi’s debut solo single “Touch”. SoRi was a member of the duo CoCoSoRi (made up of members CoCo and SoRi) and both went solo around August/September 2018. The duo wasn’t very popular and both members crowdfunded their solo singles. I hadn’t actually heard of them at the time but did see SoRi’s solo crowdfunding project. I really enjoyed her debut single and tried to find a signed copy everywhere but I don’t think her company gave out any promotional copies and nobody who joined the crowdfunding project put their signed copy up for sale (and I searched for one often!). Over the next few years, I backed SoRi’s other crowdfunding projects and emailed back and forth with her company a few times. I simply asked them in 2020 if I could buy a signed copy of the CD from them and they agreed since I’d supported her for a long time. The signed CD arrived around the 2nd anniversary of the song and SoRi had even personalised the CD by writing my name on it.

Photocard binders. Photo courtesy of Taylor of ‘Kpopcds’
The promotional CD version of Yerin Baek’s single “Bye Bye My Blue”. The single was mostly a digital-only release (which as a collector I think is a crime!), however there was a ‘Kihno card’ version released physically. It was basically just a credit-card sized NFC chip that worked with a mobile application to allow access to the song. There was a ‘promo’ CD version of the single given out to music broadcasting staff – however I don’t think there were very many of them. I first spotted one for sale in 2019 for around $250.00 on a Korean online marketplace after years of searching, but it sold before I could find someone in Korea to buy it on my behalf. I set-up eBay search alerts and it finally paid off in October 2021 when someone listed a copy for sale for $300.00.

Yerin Baek collection post including the promotional CD version of “Bye Bye My Blue” in the centre.

What is currently the most sought after item in the K-pop collecting community?

To respond to this I asked my followers on Instagram and the most common items mentioned were,

Soobin (member of boy group TXT) photocard from the R version of album “Blue Hour”
HyunJin (member of girl group LOONA) photocard from the D Version of album “[12:00]” where she is holding a hashbrown from McDonalds
Seulgi (member of girl group Red Velvet) photocard from the album “The ReVe Festival: Finale” where she has tears made of glitter streaming down her face
Polaroids in general
Vinyls as they’re often pressed in very limited quantities

Some things are definitely way more difficult to find than others. A lot of K-Pop CDs are out of print, especially for older releases or less popular groups where it might not be profitable to do a second print run for them.

For more information on the Hallyu : The Korean Wave exhibition currently at London’s V&A Museum go here.

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