There are a lot of terms and many I have no clue what they mean. Is there a concise thread summarizing them? Maybe I’ve missed it if so.
The specific couple I’ve seen pop up are “thick stamp” and “gold star”.
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I am not sure if there is such a thread, but I can explain to you the basics of what those two terms mean.
“Thick stamp”
This refers to the printing of 1st Edition base set cards. Sometimes, 1st edition symbol was printed thicker than the other cards. There are people who are much more the expert on what this means in terms of value, the history, etc., so I will leave it at that.
Edit: Specifically referring to the size of the “1” as looking thicker or thinner.
“Gold Star”
WOTC stopped making Pokemon cards after the e-series era. Nintendo picked up making Pokemon cards and started the ex series that included pokemon from the Ruby and Sapphire games. Ex cards were a rarity beyond regular holofoil. For the sets Ex Team Rocket Returns, Ex Deoxys, Ex Unseen Forces, Ex Delta Species, Ex Legend Maker, Ex Holon Phantoms, Ex Crystal Guardians, Ex Dragon Frontiers and finally Ex Power Keepers they had an additional rarity called gold stars. These cards were kind of like shining Pokemon from Neo- a good amount of the art had the shiny versions of the pokemon depicted (not all of the gold star pokemon are shiny). The most important commonality they had was that they each had a gold star next to their name on the card. Hence the name “Gold Star.” There were 3 in every set and I think that 1 would appear in approximately every 2 booster boxes. Not only is the art considered very good, but these sets came out during a low point of Pokemon popularity. Therefore, Nintendo did not print as many cards and people were not buying as much product. This means that not only were the cards more desirable when Pokemon had a revival in popularity, but they were also a bit harder to find than other set cards.
Edit: I believe that the intent for all the cards was that they are supposed to be the shiny variants of Pokemon. However, there are approximately 2 exceptions. Most notably a blue mudkip that should be colored purple…Maybe they didn’t want the card to be confused with being psychic? Not sure why they didn’t make mudkip purple. Would have made for an even better looking card in my opinion
I hope this helps.
Happy to try and answer more questions if you have!
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Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t Thick/Thin stamp mainly refer to actually the width of the “1” in the stamp?
When I re-entered the hobby in 2018 (I believe) this one confused me for a while to be fair. Because the word “Edition” of the “thick” actually appears to be thinner in printing, and it appears to be thicker in the “thin” stamp. Properly confusing!
I believe the variation that appears to be printed thinner in terms of ink, is referred to as “Ghost stamp”.
Edit: older thread discussing exactly this topic: www.elitefourum.com/t/thick-vs-thin-stamp/17503/1
6th post in there has a comparison picture mentioning exactly the above.
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@deltazero,all the gold star cards are shiny aren’t they? Only one that looks like it isn’t is latios
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I was thinking about Gold Star Mudkip. It is blue and the shiny version is a bright purple. The Vaporeon gold star should also be bright purple instead of having vague purple hue. Love the cards, but this has always bothered me.
I always thought Mudkip’s GS was pretty neat. Water filters out colors based on their respective wavelengths with red filtered first and ultraviolet being last. The shiny form has a purple-ish color which is made of blue and red. Mudkip appears to be underwater in the card which would filter out red light leaving you with the blue color that looks off. The fins and cheeks look correct because orange and yellow are able to penetrate water at deeper depths.
Here’s an old diver chart that shows what I’m getting at:
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@mario005, this is really neat and I can totally see this as a reason as to why mudkip is blue and vaporeon isn’t as purple! Thank you for sharing. It makes the card a whole lot more clever in its design. I
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By no means comprehensive and apologies if you already know some, but hopefully this is helpful.
1st Edition: First print run. In English this was only during the Wizards of the Coast era, until the Expedition era (i.e. the only English sets to have a 1st edition were Base Set, Jungle, Fossil, and Team Rocket, Gym Heroes/Challenge, and the Neo sets). Ironically Japanese cards only started having 1st edition starting from Expedition Base.
Shadowless: Specific to English Base Set. Cards that don’t have the ‘shadow’ around the artwork window. 1st edition Base are all Shadowless, but not all Shadowless cards have the first edition stamp.
‘No rarity’: Japanese Base Set cards that don’t have the rarity symbol in the bottom right corner. People believe these are the first print run of Japanese Base.
e-Series: The cards with the e-reader design. Expedition Base Set, Aquapolis, and Skyridge.
New/Old Back: Refers to the back of Japanese cards - starting from e-Series, the back of Japanese cards have had the current design.
WOTC: Wizards of the Coast - the company that printed the first sets of English cards, from Base until Skyridge.
Crystal Cards: The rarest cards released in the e-Series expansions. They were all colourless type versions of Pokemon that typically would not be (Charizard, Celebi, Ho-Oh etc.)
Gold Star Cards: As pointed out above, these were the rarest cards released during the EX era (in English this was EX Ruby and Sapphire to EX Power Keepers). They all have a gold star next to the name of the card. They featured the ‘shiny’ version of the Pokemon (except Mudkip as noted by others above) and the artwork was designed to make it look like they were jumping out of the frame.
Trophy Cards: Cards awarded as prizes.
Full Art: Cards where the artwork takes up the whole card.
You forgot:
Gym Heroes/Challenge and the Neo sets are also WOTC and all had 1st ed print runs
Lots of good info here, thanks for the replies. That thread with the pictures for stamps really shows the difference; I don’t think I’d have ever noticed otherwise.
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Oof… dropped the ball there. Thanks, I’ve edited the post.