Master List of the Rarest Pokémon Cards

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I added the Sample Set cards for now but I’m still holding off on the FPO cards. It’s a really gray line here with these cards, I don’t want to the list to go too deep into cards that never had an intentional distribution. I think it would do a disservice to a list like this to clog it with FPO cards.

I am open to reconsidering both adding FPO cards and I also may decide to remove the Sample Set cards I already added. We’ll see how the list develops.

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You’re talking about these cards, right?

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Victory_Medal_(Battle_Road_promo)

Are you sure none of these are included on the list already?

Which ones do you think may have a distribution of below 1,000 and why?

Appreciate any help.

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The Lapras was added. The other stuff can be looked into more. Sourcing always helps a ton.

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Do you have more information about these cards?

If they’re so rare why can you get them on Troll and Toad for $10?

www.trollandtoad.com/pokemon/vs-1st-edition-singles/whitney-s-furret-japanese-018-141-common-1st-edition-vs-set-/1169492

Or am I linking to a different version of the card?

Thanks for any help.

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Your link leads to the regular Japanese 1st Edition version. thymeee is referring to the English, Tropical Mega Battle version, which is indeed ultra-rare. So rare in fact, that the entire set of these cards - which date back to 2001 - only has 33 cards graded by PSA to this day.

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I created entries for these cards in the “Rare Stamps” section. Would still appreciate more info if you have it!

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Got ya, I’ll create entries for all of these cards.

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Thanks for this! Super helpful to have this all in one place

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Does anyone know if the Japanese versions of the Tyranitar Half-Decks are also rare / under 1,000 distribution? (I would assume so?)

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Great list.

How about the lunala and solgaleo festa Cards from s&m?

m.bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Lunala_(Celestial_Storm_70)

Sells in Japan raw for a couple hundred and was given to tournament winners.

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Highly doubt it, PSA pop report is at 150, and there is no shortage of availability from what I can see. I don’t think any theme decks would be that low of a print.

I appreciate your hard work to compile this list. I was thinking it would be cool to have an indicator for cards that we know have a specific amount of copies meant for distribution, as many of the others are quite speculative. Anyway that might add too much/ be an effort.

Also regarding an earlier comment that you asked for sourcing, I don’t actually have any sources for those, and Bulbapedia does not confirm print run either. It just seemed that a theme with “lottery” cards in Japan is a Limited print run, some at 5k, others at 1k, making the list. I was hoping maybe it could be a reminder of the existence of certain cards to other members that might Have more information on those cards.

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Maybe create a separated section just like with stamped cards and non-TCG cards for all unreleased or unofficial cards? So all Sample cards; Matchprint cards; FPO cards; the COLLECTORS stamped Charizard; etc. So they’re separated from official released cards? I think it would still be nice to add them, since they are among the rarest cards. There are only 2 copies of most of the MATCHPRINT cards for example.

PS: Do the Ishihara GX (and similar - i.e. Doug) cards count as official or unofficial? They were mostly for internal use and as a birthday gift, so not really an intentional release?

Greetz,
Quuador

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the japanese tyranitar half deck was also a normal distribution outside the tropical mega battle, the deck changed a few cards between the two distributions but the only one that is rare in the japanese version is the 2001 tropical wind i think (which you already have listed on your list).

edit: I just right now saw you did not include any numbers on the vs cards out of these decks. According to bulbapedia these are the distributions:

The players that received a deck in their native language were: twelve in Japanese, six in English, and one each in German, Dutch, and French. And the players whom received the deck in English were: one each in Portuguese, Danish, and Swedish.

the 12 in japanese were reprints, but the distribution for each of these cards in english is 9, 1 for each in german, dutch and french. (According to bulbapedia)

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Which should make them the rarest official TCG cards in those 3 languages… Crazy to think about it, ONE copy. One. I think there was a thread here where the German participant shared scans of his cards, can’t find it right now.

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The original thread where the German deck was posted is from 2015, but here I recently posted all VS cards I’ve personally seen thus far including that entire German deck: www.elitefourum.com/t/vs-english-card-list/28328/2 (also mentioned on page 5 of this thread :blush: ).

PS: I’m the one who edited that Bulbapedia information after this excellent thread where we got confirmation that the Swedish, Danish, and Portuguese winners received English decks. Before that it was mentioned that each player got the deck in their respective language, including the Danish, Swedish, and Portuguese winners. Would have loved to see Swedish and Danish cards, but I’m glad there is now confirmation at all. I still don’t know for sure whether French and Dutch decks exist. I think French will exist (since German and Italian exist as well) which are the three foreign languages that have printed almost any set, and Dutch not (since the Portuguese winner was also given an English deck instead of Portuguese one) and the only Dutch sets printed are Base Set, Jungle, and Fossil - and almost all Dutch people can read in English just fine (I’m Dutch myself). But I simply don’t know for sure (would love to see confirmation about the Dutch and French deck winners).
PPS: The Italian deck is not mention on that Bulbapedia page. These decks were given at two events: Tropical Mega Battle and 2002 World Championship. The languages of the winners for the Tropical Mega Battle are known, but the 2002 World Championship (apart from at least one Italian and a bunch of English ones) not.

EDIT:

You’re indeed correct. According to that same Bulbapedia page you’ve used for the other languages, the second deck on that page (Movie Release) was the normal Japanese deck (which doesn’t contain the Tropical Breeze, but does contain the Rocket’s Tyranitar and Darkness Energy). The Tropical Mega Battle Release was given at both the Tropical Mega Battle event and 2002 World Championships a.f.a.i.k.

Greetz,
Quuador

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@quuador Great idea with creating a separate section on the list for unofficially released cards, I went ahead and did just that. I still think things like the Sample Cards should be open to debate with whether or not they belong on this list, but we’ll keep them there for now.

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I added these 2 cards to the “Rare Stamps” section. Thanks!

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@thymeee, @quuador, @burnedos, I made a big edit for the English/French/German/Dutch Tyranitar half deck cards. Let me know if you think it can be improved further.

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I am definitely not the guy to ask, i simply quoted the bulbapedia article and looked up the psa pop report.

@quuador, did you know in which languages the world championship decks were distributed? If they were also non japanese it might mean that there are a few more of these vs cards, although still not much.

@hyruleguardian (I dont know how this works but I tried to tag EnlightenedBulbasaur), your distribution is now off by 3 on the english vs cards because of the portuguese, danish, swedish participants in the tropical mega battle who also got english decks. which would make the total distribution of the english vs cards 9 instead of 6.

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