Do you think alt art cards are the gold star 
cards of this era in terms of rarity/collectibility?
- Yes
- No
0
voters
1 Like
This has been asked in every era since gold stars ended. The number one thing that can’t be replicated is scarcity. The gold star era was a drought. Those were easily some of the lowest points for Pokémon. The total amount of cards printed between 2003-2007 are printed today in a few months.
29 Likes
Surely would win the rarity contest as matter of fact, while collectability is a subjective matter not exclusively tied to that rarity? This poll tells me nothing about what people think about either option - just what they think about them relative to each other.
Most importantly, there is no Yuka Morii illustrated , thus obviously biasing the outcome of this contest in favor of Illustration Rares.
I will be taking no further questions.
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That and attrition. The attrition rate back then was orders of magnitude higher than it is now (in terms of both copies lost and copies damaged).
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For clarification, which of these are Alt Arts? Is it still a term that can be used collectively now that they have large variations of card styles, rarity terms and pullrates? 
Ultra Rare EX [illus. Mitsuhiro Arita, TOKIIYA, Hasuno]
Special Art GX
Special Art Tag Team GX
Character Rares
Character Super Rares
Art Rares
Special Art [Rare] V
Special Art [Rare] VMAX
Special Art Rare VSTAR
Ultra Rare VSTAR [illus. AKIRA EGAWA]
Special Art Rare ex
Special Art Rare Supporters
10 Likes
This is another good point! What even is an Alt Art at this point? I think I mentioned this in one of my older videos, back when there were “less” alt arts. Regardless where people stand, it’s clear what a gold star is and having less than 30 also makes it easier to collect.
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besides being the clear chase card in each set with lower pull rates than the rest of the set, I dont think theyre too similar. But in that regard evey set’s chase could be considered in this poll
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It’s a made up term to compare the hardest-to-pull fan favourites from modern sets with an already established rarity term. It makes less sense stacking up 12 different rarities together to 1, let alone calling only a few cards of one modern rarity Alt Arts just because they became the chase. There is no current replacement for Gold Stars
4 Likes
It’s hard to compare things to gold stars for the reasons stated before (the built in pull rates, the lack of popularity and low hobby engagement)
There’s just so many cards printed nowadays that I don’t think we will have have that level of rarity in set cards ever again. Unless of course pokemon starts to bake in high rarity again.
In short, my answer is no.
More Pokemon cards are being printed today than in the Gold Star era, so I believe rarity would go to Gold Stars. The PSA pop reports are somewhat indicative of this when comparing art rares to gold stars. Collectability is too subjective though.
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For me there is just a coherence that gold stars have that alt arts don’t. That’s why Regice will stay valuable but Greedent V may never be more than $50
The way that the question gets interpreted by the reddit crowd is no doubt “will alt arts be expensive like gold stars one day?”. I just reject that interpretation. I don’t think a “No” means you hate alt arts or think they can’t climb in value.
7 Likes
People aren’t ready to talk about Diamond/Pearl/Platinum shinies being the actual modern Gold Stars.
(Does 2008/2009 count as modern? Lol)
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TPC is adapting to a much larger scale of demand now so modern sets are being designed to cater to a variety of collecting interests. ex sets relied on ex and gold stars to carry them through much less significant years of the tcg, so I understand the charm in its simplicity
I think they are definitely closer to the spirit of gold stars but just lack in the desirability department. Ponyta is a hard sell against Rayquaza. They also heavily nerfed the cards in English compared to Japanese
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Alt Arts cover a lot of card types nowdays but stonkers only cherrypick certain cards as them while ignoring like 80% of the cards that are their definition of “alt arts” aswell.
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Oh, for sure! That same kind of spirit is actually why I love them so much. Until S/M, shiny Pokemon were pretty much always final stage evos/legendaries. They won’t ever compete in popularity with the likes of Call of Legends or maybe even alt arts, but I still hope people can appreciate how charming and unique of a subset these were! 
Yeah and that’s exactly why the comparison to gold stars doesn’t make sense. You can’t replicate the quaintness of what the hobby was back then. People threw away Umbreon because they were non-holo. The rarity is objectively not the same, the collectibility… they just aren’t really the same thing or even comparable in my mind.
The whole question is silly as I mentioned. I kept the wording the same intentionally though. The term 'rarity/collectibility" is so utterly vague. It’s clearly just reddit speak for “future tendies”
5 Likes
I voted yes, but after reading through posts, I see there’s a bit more going on here.
I was thinking in terms of collectible chase cards. In that sense, yeah they are the gold stars. I could see people making pages in their binder from the most rare alt arts in the same way someone might do so for gold stars today.
But in terms of scarcity both within each card and in the number of them across different sets, it’s a very different picture. Same goes for the feel of the hobby back in the late '00s and now. They aren’t likely to have the same kind of value trajectory as gold stars despite being the current chase cards.
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Superfluous comparisons like this will end once people accept that they’ve missed the boat on these cards and cannot reclaim that same spark by substituting something else.
And that’s okay. It’s what makes Gold Stars, Crystals, Shinings, old JP promos/trophies etc. fun and exciting to collect. These cards that were once next to worthless are now long gone but treasured and some of the most desirable items in the hobby. Their fleeting nature is what makes them beautiful.
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Get analyzed reddit
1 Like