How to read a Pokémon card before you look up its price

Every price lookup you will ever do starts with one question: which card is this, exactly? Get that wrong and the number you get back belongs to somebody else's card.

Five things printed on a card answer it, and the name is only the first of them. The other four are small, easy to miss and where all the useful information is. This is where each one sits and what it tells you.

Why the name on the card is not enough

A Pokémon has been printed on cards for more than twenty-five years, often with the same artwork reused across sets, in different languages, and in foil and non-foil versions of the same print run. Searching a name alone puts all of those in one list, and the prices in that list can be a dollar apart or a thousand. It is the single most common reason a card sells for less than the guide said it would.

The fix is to add two more fields: the number of the card inside its set, and which set that is. Together those three almost always land on one card.

The five marks that identify a card

Four of the five sit along the bottom strip of the card, in an order that has moved around between eras, and the fifth is the name across the top. Once you know the shapes you are looking for, reading a card takes about ten seconds.

The collector number, the field that pins it down

The collector number is the card's position in its set, written as the card number over the set total: 025/165. It is printed at the bottom of the card. The community shorthand for a card is the name, the set abbreviation and that number together, as in Sprigatito SVI 13.

Sometimes the first number is bigger than the second. A card numbered 101/100 is not a misprint: Bulbapedia calls these secret cards, and they have been around since Dark Raichu turned up as 83/82 in Team Rocket. Since the Scarlet and Violet expansion, every card of a rarity above Double Rare and ACE SPEC Rare is classed as a secret card, so on modern sets the pattern is common rather than strange.

The set symbol, and what changed with Scarlet and Violet

The set is the other half of the answer. On sets released before the Scarlet and Violet base set, it is a small picture: a symbol unique to that expansion. From Scarlet and Violet onward it is text instead, a short set code in a box next to the collector number. Bulbapedia records the change as expansion symbols being replaced by expansion codes and language codes across all cards.

The same era brought a change you can spot from further away: the yellow border used on international cards became grey, matching the Japanese ones.

Expansions are not the same size in every language, which matters if you are comparing your card against a listing from another country. Bulbapedia puts the English Scarlet and Violet expansion at 258 cards and the Japanese release of the same expansion, which was split into two sets, at 216.

One warning about that kind of figure: do not assume the number after the slash on your card matches the size of the expansion it came from. Secret cards are numbered above the total printed on the card, which is what makes them secret, so the two counts are answering different questions.

Rarity marks, from a circle to three gold stars

The rarity mark sits at the bottom of the card. Bulbapedia's list is the fullest one going. The three old marks are the ones most people already know:

• A circle is common. Usually a basic, unevolved Pokémon.
• A diamond is uncommon. The vast majority of Trainer cards carry this one.
• A star is rare. Usually evolved and Legendary Pokémon, and English booster packs guarantee at least one per pack.

Above those, the Scarlet and Violet era added a run of marks that are counted in stars, and the count is the whole trick:

• Two black stars is Double Rare. This is what Pokémon ex cards are.
• Two silver stars is Ultra Rare: full art Pokémon ex and Supporter cards.
• One gold star is Illustration Rare.
• Two gold stars is Special Illustration Rare.
• Three gold stars is Hyper Rare.

Japanese cards from the Black and White era on print bold letters rather than symbols, C, U, R and RR among them, and the rarity assigned to a card can differ between the Japanese release and the rest of the world.

The regulation mark dates the print run

The regulation mark is a single letter in the bottom left corner. Play! Pokémon puts it plainly: it is on every card printed since 2020, and it, not the expansion a card came from, is what decides whether the card is legal in the Standard format.

For the 2026 season, cards marked G are no longer Standard legal, and H, I and J are, along with anything newer. The rotation took effect on April 10, 2026 for in-person events and on March 26, 2026 in Pokémon TCG Live. That list moves every season, so check the current announcement rather than this page if legality is what you are after.

For pricing rather than play, the letter is useful for a different reason: it is the fastest way to tell a recent reprint from an older card that looks identical. A card reprinted with a current regulation mark is legal in Standard even if the original was not, which is exactly the sort of thing that moves a price.

Same number, different card: print variants

This is the step most people skip, and it is the one that turns a good lookup into a wrong one. One collector number can exist as several different physical objects.

Holo, reverse holo, and plain

A holofoil card carries the shiny, light-scattering effect on the artwork. A reverse holofoil puts it on everything except the artwork. Bulbapedia dates the modern supply of them precisely: one reverse holofoil in each booster pack since the Legendary Collection expansion, increased to two in Scarlet and Violet. The same era made rare cards holofoil whenever they come out of a pack.

So the same card, same set, same number, comes in versions that are not interchangeable. If the copy that sold was a reverse holo and yours is not, you are looking at the wrong price.

First Edition and Shadowless

On old English cards there are two more things to check. The 1st Edition stamp is a small "Edition 1" symbol, usually on the opposite side of the card from the expansion symbol. English 1st Edition printing ran from Base Set through Neo Destiny, skipping Base Set 2, and stopped there.

Shadowless is the second English print of Base Set, after 1st Edition and before Unlimited. The tell is in the name: there is no drop shadow around the artwork window. Shadowless cards also have thinner HP numbers and attack text than the Unlimited print that followed. On Trainer and Energy cards, the copyright line reads "© 1995, 96, 98, 99 Nintendo" on Shadowless and drops the 99 on Unlimited. Base Set itself came out on January 9, 1999 and has 102 cards.

Promos are numbered differently

If the bottom of the card shows a letter-prefixed number and no set total, it is a promo. Scarlet and Violet era promos use the SVP code, running SVP001, SVP002 and up. The Sword and Shield era used SWSH the same way. Promos come in tins, boxes, collections and battle decks rather than in ordinary booster packs, which is part of why their prices behave differently from set cards.

The rule of thumb is short: a number over a set total is a set card, a letter-prefixed number on its own is a promo.

What to write down before you search

These are the fields you actually search on. The rarity mark and the regulation mark from the drawing above are for confirming that you landed on the right card, not for typing into a box.

1. 01The name, as printed, including any ex or V suffix.
2. 02The collector number and the set total, both halves of it.
3. 03The set symbol or set code sitting next to that number.
4. 04The print variant: holo, reverse holo, plain, and on old cards whether it is 1st Edition or Shadowless.
5. 05The language, if it is not English.

With those in hand the next question is where to get the prices, and the honest answer is that you want sales rather than listings. That is a different problem, and it has its own traps: what eBay shows you and what it hides is worth reading before you trust a number. If the number you already found looks too low, there are a handful of usual reasons.

Or skip the typing. looka reads the name, number and set off the card through your webcam, then shows what recent copies actually sold for. If you would rather do this on a laptop without installing anything, that is the whole idea.