So, you just found out that there are some gold Pokemon cards available online, eh?
Cool as they are, you might be wondering if these cards are worth something or if they can be played in official games.
Are gold Pokemon cards real? Let’s find out.
The color of gold is associated with treasures and basically anything luxurious, so if you will implement that color on trading cards, it’s no surprise that curious collectors will be drawn to it.
Related post: How to Get Into Pokemon Card Collecting?
For this post, we’re going to provide some helpful details about gold Pokemon cards, including those suspicious-looking ones that can be purchased in online shops like eBay and Amazon.
Are Gold Pokemon Cards Real or Fake?
The cheap gold Pokemon cards that you can find online, specifically those with grainy texture and overly-shiny text, are indeed fake. Some authentic printings of Pokemon cards (like hyper rares), however, are known for their gold background, which makes them the real gold Pokemon cards.
A few authentic gold Pokemon cards were also printed before the existence of Hyper Rare cards. Older sets like Chilling Reign, Ultra Prism, and Crown Zenith are home to some highly valuable gold-colored cards.
In other words, gold Pokemon cards are real, but this is only true for specific cards printed in some sets.
What Are Hyper Rare Cards?
As of writing this article, Hyper Rare cards are one of the newest rarities in Pokemon TCG. These cards made their debut during the Scarlet & Violet series.
Read More: Most Expensive Cards in Scarlet and Violet
The first Hyper Rare cards ever printed include a copy of the following cards:
- Miraidon ex
- Koraidon ex
- Nest Ball
- Rare Candy
- Basic Lightning Energy
- Basic Fighting Energy
After the release of the first batch of Hyper Rare cards from the Scarlet & Violet base set, more cards of the same rarity started to appear in the succeeding expansions, making them more accessible to players and collectors alike.
Apart from its gold background, Hyper Rare cards are also easily identifiable with the rarity symbol of three stars.
Since they are viewed in a similar way as secret rares, hyper rares also tend to have higher than average value, making them worthy collectibles.
An example of an expensive Hyper Rare card is this reprint of Charizard ex from the Obsidian Flames set:
Read More: Most Valuable Cards in Obsidian Flames
What About Those Metal Gold-Plated Pokemon Cards?
As we already mentioned, those cheap gold-plated Pokemon cards that often feature powerful Pokemon like Pokemon VMAX and GX are counterfeits.
Gold-plated Pokemon cards are custom made and are never recognized by The Pokemon company.
Some of these fake gold cards are just scanned copies of real Pokemon cards while others are completely fan-made if you will look at their text.
Take for example this Charizard V card that was posted by a redditor named mathmannix:
Notice that this Charizard has a whopping 500 damage for its “Wild flames” attack, with an awkward description saying “Attack with igniting fire, and all the elves of the opponent will be burned.”
Unless you’re playing Magic the Gathering, you’ll never encounter any elves when playing Pokemon TCG. Such a feature basically gives up the card as a fake one.
Any Chances That We Can Identify Fake Pokemon Cards?
There are lots of ways of how you can know if a Pokemon card is fake. The most common one is the rip test, but this method is quite risky, so we wouldn’t recommend it to beginners.
The best advice that we can give you is to buy Pokemon TCG products from reliable local stores near you.
But in case you want to purchase online, you can visit Pokemon TCG’s official website to look for a list of their authorized retailers.
Final Thoughts
Gold Pokemon cards are, in general, fun to collect, but if you want to go for the genuine ones, always go for hyper rares.
Hyper rares are the newest known gold Pokemon cards so far, so if you ever encountered one that is not the said rarity, try to double check and see the source of that card, as well as the set it came from.
As a website dedicated to sharing helpful information about Pokemon TCG, we never encourage our readers to buy counterfeit products.
Acquiring those gold-plated cards online is completely under the buyer’s discretion. Others may find them interesting and more affordable, but keep in mind that they are also void of any value and are illegal to play in official tournaments.
We hope this article answered the most popular question about gold Pokemon cards. Do you have other Pokemon TCG-related questions? Feel free to comment down below.
Also, don’t forget to check out more of our articles here at PokeCardHQ:
