Pokémon Card Collector Glossary
You browse listings or watch pack-opening videos and hear words you do not understand. This glossary explains basic Pokémon TCG collecting jargon so you can follow other collectors and understand the terms printed on the cards themselves.
Packaging and opening
- booster pack
- A sealed pack of cards from one set. You open it to see which cards are inside.
- booster box
- A box containing a full allotment of booster packs from one expansion. It keeps the packs together and lets you plan to open an entire box at once.
- ETB — Elite Trainer Box
- A larger collector box containing booster packs and gameplay accessories. It serves as a starter bundle for new players.
- booster break
- A shared live pack-opening session, usually with a group. Participants show what they pulled and comment on the pulls.
- sealed
- Collecting products that remain factory-sealed. The original wrapping matters, not the contents inside.
- bulk
- A stack of ordinary common cards from opened booster packs. Collectors save it for trades or to fill out practice decks.
Card appearance
- holo
- A card with holographic artwork. The shine appears in a specific area, most often in the Pokémon illustration.
- reverse holo
- The same card as the regular version, but with a shine across the surface outside the illustration. Even common cards can have this treatment, so a shiny card is not necessarily rare.
- full art
- A card whose illustration extends across the entire surface without a border. It is easy to distinguish from the regular version of the same Pokémon.
- alt art
- An alternate full-card illustration of the same Pokémon. It uses different artwork and can become a collector target.
- centering
- The alignment of the print within the card border. If the image is shifted, the card has poor centering and is likely to receive a lower grade.
- misprint
- A card with a printing error, such as an incorrect color, misalignment, or typo. Some collectors see it as a flaw, while others consider it an interesting collectible.
Rarity and collecting targets
- pull
- A valuable card drawn from a booster pack. Collectors call it a good pull when they find something they wanted.
- pull rate
- The statistical chance of drawing a particular card from a pack. It helps estimate how often a hit might appear.
- hit
- Any more valuable card found in opened packs. In casual use, it is synonymous with a good pull.
- chase
- The most sought-after card in a set. It is the card people hope to pull and search for in listings.
- grail
- A collector's dream card. It is a personal goal and not necessarily the rarest card on the market.
- rarity codes: IR, SAR, SR, UR, HR
- IR means Illustration Rare, SAR means Special Art Rare, SR means Secret Rare, UR means Ultra Rare, and HR means Hyper Rare. These codes identify special card versions in newer sets.
- mechanic labels: ex, V, VMAX, VSTAR, GX, Tera
- Names of gameplay mechanic lines printed on cards. They remain in their original form and indicate that a Pokémon follows different rules from an ordinary one.
Protection and grading
- top loader
- A rigid plastic holder. A card goes inside it to prevent bending during transport.
- sleeve
- A soft card holder that goes inside a top loader for additional protection.
- grading
- A professional assessment of a card's condition by a third-party company. The card receives a grade and is returned in a hard case.
- PSA 10 “Gem Mint”
- The highest grade on the PSA scale. It denotes a card in virtually perfect condition and is the most common benchmark used in grading.
Rarities found in the catalog
A card's rarity name often indicates the era it comes from. These labels appear only in particular series and years.
- Rare Holo LV.X
- A card from the LV.X mechanic line; every one has LV.X in its name. It appears only in the Diamond & Pearl and Platinum series, from 2007 to 2009. See these cards in the catalog →
- LEGEND
- Two-part cards: each consists of two halves with consecutive numbers that must be joined. They appear only in HeartGold & SoulSilver, in 2010. See these cards in the catalog →
- Amazing Rare
- A label from a single era: in our catalog, it appears only in Sword & Shield, from 2020 to 2021. See these cards in the catalog →
- Rare Shining
- Cards with Shining in their names. The catalog includes them in the Neo and Sun & Moon series, two eras separated by more than a decade. See these cards in the catalog →
- Rare Secret
- Secret cards, usually numbered above the final number printed for the set. This is the only label in this group that recurs through most eras in the catalog. See these cards in the catalog →
The catalog contains 12,027 cards across 23 rarity levels.