Hey everyone, I just got back into the hobby as of a month ago. My favorite cards as a kid were the old ex cards (i’ve included a link below; the one’s with a crystal border). I have been binging SMMMMpratte’s videos in my free time and have learned the older, the minter, the rarer, the better. How rare/scarce are these old ex cards?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks in advance.
That’s a bit of a massive undertaking to answer in one sitting, but let me show you how I would look this up.
The far right hand column with the “#” symbol is going to be your friend. For example, let’s take the Mew ex, which falls under the 007/Play category.
Googling: Mew ex 007/Play PSA turns two pages which are useful.
The links provided give an insight into auction prices that have been recently realized and how many of these cards have been graded (population report).
As you become more familiar with how the card was released, such as a promo release as opposed to a set card, you’ll start to gain a gut feel of what’s rare.
www.psacard.com/pop/tcg-cards/2003/pokemon-japanese-play-promo/115710
www.psacard.com/auctionprices/tcg-cards/2003-pokemon-japanese-play-promo/mew-ex-holo/values/1975933
Thanks for the help! I personally prefer English variants as opposed to the Japanese ones. From my understanding, the Japanese promos are the cards that are rare though.
I recommend looking up pull rates statistics or watching box breaks. Then look at the prices of boxes. Check out the PSA pop report too. You might find your answer that way
Totally depends on the ex. The pull rates for exs were very high for the first three sets. Overall, though, exs are scarce but not rare. But no set cards are rare (strictly speaking), gold stars and 1st Ed. Base holos included. But exs *are* rare in gem mint condition since they are very fragile and very little sealed product is left from that era. But in any condition? exs are scarce but not rare.
Let me throw some quotes that may help you understand this better
“Set cards, there’s always another copy”
“Ooyama’s art”
“Pick your poison”
Hope this helps
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I found that it was very difficult to identify the Japanese-exclusive old ex artworks. These artworks are not found in any english set or promo. So I made a list documenting all of them. Hope this helps 
www.elitefourum.com/t/identifying-every-japanese-old-ex-card-not-in-english/32084/1
Awesome guys, thank you so much for the help! I am from the League of Legends community, so the Pokemon community is much more nice and welcoming than the toxic LoL community.
Also @boogus, there’s some of those going in the PWCC auction tomorrow that I have my eyes on! They’re beautiful!! @boogus,
You can definitely look around e4 for pull rate statistics and the likes. Here is a great thread made by @zorloth, who posted above that may help you 
www.elitefourum.com/t/guide-to-early-ex-series-pull-rates/30710/1