Gold Star Pokémon cards

The most valuable Gold Star card is Rayquaza ☆ 107/107 (Deoxys), worth about $8,500 ungraded. 25 English cards carry this rarity, from Team Rocket Returns (2004) to Power Keepers (2007).

Gold Star cards are the rarest pack pulls of the EX era. Each one shows a Pokémon in its shiny colors, with a small star (☆) printed after its name. They appeared in English sets from Team Rocket Returns in 2004 to Power Keepers in 2007, usually two or three per set, and CGC estimates the pull rate at about one per two booster boxes. Two more, Espeon and Umbreon, were given out through the POP Series 5 promotional packs rather than sold in booster packs.

To recognize one, look for the star after the Pokémon's name, the holofoil artwork and the shiny coloring. The card number sits within the set total, so a Gold Star is not a secret rare, even though it is scarcer than most secret rares.

Value comes from three things: the Pokémon, the condition and the short print window. Rayquaza from Deoxys is the most famous, and a single CGC Pristine 10 copy sold for $1,020,000 in August 2026, a record for a card from an English set. Charizard ☆ δ (Dragon Frontiers) is the Charizard every Gold Star collector wants, and Pikachu ☆ (Holon Phantoms) carries the added pull of Pikachu. Even lesser Pokémon such as Celebi ☆ (Crystal Guardians) sell well above most cards of the era, because so few were pulled and fewer survived without whitening or scratches. Top grades carry steep premiums, since the holofoil surface marks easily.

Every rarity and its symbol is explained in the Pokémon card rarity chart.