Pokémon Card Rarity Symbols, Explained

What do the symbols on a Pokémon card mean?

The small mark at the bottom of the card, next to the card number, is its rarity symbol. It tells you which slot of a booster pack the card was printed for — not what it’s worth. Three symbols have been on English cards since Base Set launched on January 9, 1999:

• Black circle — Common. Mostly basic, unevolved Pokémon.
• Black diamond — Uncommon. Evolved Pokémon and most Trainer cards.
• Black star — Rare. Evolved and Legendary Pokémon, and the cards above them on older sets.

Bulbapedia’s rarity reference puts the rule simply: every English booster pack carries at least one Rare and, in general, three Uncommons, with Commons filling the rest. The number of cards around them has changed over the years — packs held 11 cards from Base Set to Neo Destiny, 9 from the e-Card series through the EX series, and 10 from Diamond & Pearl on, with a Basic Energy added from Sun & Moon.

Basic Energy cards have no rarity at all, and neither do promo cards, which print a promo mark in its place (more on those below). If you only want the answer for one card, the rarity symbol decoder draws each symbol so you can match what you see.

What do the gold and silver stars mean on new Pokémon cards?

Scarlet & Violet, released March 31, 2023, lined the English rarity scale up with the one Japan uses, while keeping symbols instead of letters. Every Rare in a pack became holofoil, and the cards above the Rare got their own marks. The Mega Evolution series (from September 26, 2025) kept the system and added its own top rarity.

Where the chase cards sit in the pack matters for understanding them. In the international Scarlet & Violet–era pack, the Rare slot can hold a Double Rare or Ultra Rare instead; the second Reverse Holo slot can hold an Illustration Rare, Special Illustration Rare or Hyper Rare instead; and in Paldean Fates and the ACE SPEC sets the first Reverse Holo slot could hold a Shiny or ACE SPEC card. That’s why a pack can contain two hits at once.

The Japanese letter codes are worth knowing because sellers use them in English listings too: “SAR” for a Special Illustration Rare, “AR” for an Illustration Rare, “UR” for a gold Hyper Rare. Bulbapedia gives no letter for the Ultra Rare, the ACE SPEC Rare or the Shiny rarities, hence the dashes above; PokeGuardian’s list of Japanese Scarlet & Violet rarities uses SR and ACE for the first two. Japanese cards have printed letters instead of symbols since the Black & White era — more in Japanese vs. English Pokémon cards.

What are Mega Hyper Rare, Mega Attack Rare, Black White Rare and the 30th Celebration rarities?

Five rarities arrived in 2025 and 2026, most of them tied to one series or even one set.

Mega Hyper Rare (gold star with a black border)

Introduced with the Mega Evolution set (September 26, 2025) and coded MUR in Japan. These are gold versions of Mega Evolution Pokémon ex, numbered at the very end of the set. TCGdex lists two in Mega Evolution and Ascended Heroes and one each in Phantasmal Flames, Perfect Order, Chaos Rising and Pitch Black.

Mega Attack Rare (a pastel pink and a pastel green star)

Coded MA, these show Mega Evolution Pokémon ex in a pop-art style with the attack name written large — in Japanese on English cards. English Mega Attack Rares were promos until Ascended Heroes (January 30, 2026), which has seven. Note that TCGdex files those seven under Ultra Rare, so database counts can differ from the symbol on the card.

Black White Rare (one black star and one white star)

Coded BWR and printed only in Black Bolt and White Flare (July 18, 2025): Victini and Zekrom ex in Black Bolt, Victini and Reshiram ex in White Flare, with all-black-and-white artwork except Victini’s, which is red.

Futuristic Rare (a star split teal and purple)

Coded FUR. In 30th Celebration (September 16, 2026) it covers two cards, Mewtwo ex and Mew ex, numbered 157/128 and 158/128 and illustrated by YOSHIROTTEN, plus a few promos.

Pikachu Rare (a special Pikachu icon)

Also from 30th Celebration: 30 different Pikachu cards with their own holofoil pattern and an anniversary Pikachu icon where the symbol would be. Every 30th Celebration pack contains one, so a Pikachu Rare on its own isn’t a hit. Every card in 30th Celebration is holofoil, Basic Energy included.

What did rarity symbols mean before 2023?

For most of the game’s history the symbols told you less. A single black star covered three different things: a plain non-holo Rare, a Holo Rare with foil art, and many ultra rares. The card’s design — foil in the picture, an ex or GX in the name, a full-art layout — was the real tell. Bulbapedia notes that ultra rares were “typically marked as Rare Holofoil cards” and only sometimes had symbols of their own.

Later, many Ultra Rares and Secret Rares carried an outlined white star instead of the solid black one — that’s the symbol you’ll see on a lot of Pokémon V, VMAX, VSTAR and GX cards, full arts, rainbow rares and gold cards. Those card types, and when each first appeared, are the quickest way to place an older hit:

Two more pre-2023 oddities: the Shining Fates Shiny Vault (2021) used a plain star, with a hollow one on Shiny Pokémon V and VMAX, and numbered its cards SV001 to SV122. The original ACE SPEC cards from Boundaries Crossed (2012) were grey with red and blue accents; when ACE SPECs returned in Temporal Forces (2024) they turned magenta and got the pink star. If you’re not sure which era a card is from, the card era finder works it out from the border, copyright line and set symbol.

What's the difference between a holo and a reverse holo?

A holo (holofoil) card has foil in the picture. A reverse holo has foil everywhere except the picture — PSA describes it as foil on all areas outside the art box. Any rarity can come as a reverse holo: a Common reverse holo is still a Common.

Reverse holos began with Legendary Collection on May 24, 2002, in a fireworks-like pattern, and from then on every booster pack has held at least one. Scarlet & Violet raised it again: packs now guarantee three holofoil cards instead of two, because the Rare is always holo too.

The foil pattern itself changed by era, which helps date a card:

• Base Set, Jungle, Fossil: “starlight” foil of small stars.
• Most sets from Base Set 2 to Call of Legends: “cosmos” foil of dots and circles.
• Black & White series: horizontal stripes (“tinsel”).
• XY series: a diagonal sheen. Sun & Moon: a wave-like pattern.
• Sword & Shield: thin vertical stripes.
• Scarlet & Violet on: a horizontal sheen, and holo Rares got holofoil silver borders.

How do you know if a Pokémon card is a secret rare?

Read the card number, not the symbol. A secret rare is numbered higher than the set total printed after the slash — PSA and TCGplayer both define it that way. The first one in an English main set was Dark Raichu, numbered 83/82 in Team Rocket (April 24, 2000). Neo Revelation followed with Shining Gyarados (65/64) and Shining Magikarp (66/64).

Modern sets have far more of them. In Scarlet & Violet–era sets, every Ultra Rare, Illustration Rare, Special Illustration Rare and Hyper Rare sits above the printed total. Surging Sparks, for example, prints “/191” on its cards but has 191 + 61 = 252 of them; its 11 Special Illustration Rares are numbered 236 to 246 and its 6 Hyper Rares 247 to 252 (TCGdex).

Before 2023 English sets kept most full-art cards inside the numbering, so they weren’t technically secret — only the rainbow, gold and similar prints above the total were. Some subsets use their own letters instead:

• SV1–SV94: Hidden Fates Shiny Vault (2019). SV001–SV122: Shining Fates Shiny Vault (2021).
• TG01–TG30: the Trainer Gallery subsets of Brilliant Stars through Silver Tempest (2022).
• GG01–GG70: Crown Zenith’s Galarian Gallery (2023).
• CC001–CC025: the Celebrations Classic Collection (2021).

What does it mean if a card has no rarity symbol, or says PROMO?

A star with the word PROMO over it marks a promotional card — from a tin, a collection box, an event or a prerelease kit. Promos have no rarity; they’re numbered in their own promo series (SVP for Scarlet & Violet, MEP for Mega Evolution and so on) rather than as part of an expansion.

A small Pokémon silhouette instead of a symbol means the card came from a Trainer Kit or half deck; the silhouette shows which deck. No mark at all usually means a Basic Energy card, which has no rarity. On Japanese cards, a letter code (C, U, R, RR and up) replaces the symbol entirely.

Does a rarer symbol mean a Pokémon card is worth more?

Often, but not reliably. The symbol says how the card was printed; the price depends on which Pokémon it is, demand and, above all, condition. A Special Illustration Rare of an unpopular Pokémon can sell for less than a Double Rare everyone needs for their deck, and a creased Hyper Rare is worth a fraction of a clean one.

Don’t trust quoted “pull rates” as fact either. Bulbapedia notes that the precise odds of pulling ultra rare cards have never been published by Wizards of the Coast or The Pokémon Company; any figure you see is an estimate from people opening packs. To value a card, identify the exact printing, then check what it has actually sold for with the price check — sold listings, not asking prices.

If you’d rather sell a stack than sort it symbol by symbol, text photos of the fronts and backs to (760) 453-6389 for a cash or trade-credit offer based on recent sold prices — or see how selling works.