In June 2003, one month after Wizards of the Coast shipped Skyridge, the English Pokémon TCG changed hands: Pokémon USA took over production and Nintendo of America took over distribution. What followed were four years and sixteen sets — from EX Ruby & Sapphire to EX Power Keepers — that we now call the EX era: the era of Pokémon-ex, of Delta Species, of the e-Reader's final goodbye and, above all, of the 27 Gold Stars, the shiny cards that became the holy grail of post-Wizards collecting. The divorce wasn't friendly: Wizards' license expired on September 30, 2003, and the very next day WotC sued Nintendo and Pokémon USA — card-game patent infringement, trade secrets, and the 2002 hiring of its executives Richard Arons and Rene Flores all included. The case settled without trial that December, and the new era never looked back.
This is Part 3 of our TCG history. If you're new to the series, start with Part 1: the Wizards era or Part 2: Johto and the end of Wizards, which ends exactly where this article begins.
EX Ruby & Sapphire
109 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Ruby & Sapphire
EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua
95 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua
EX Team Rocket Returns
109 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Team Rocket Returns
EX Deoxys
107 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Deoxys
EX Unseen Forces
115 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Unseen Forces
EX Delta Species
113 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Delta Species
EX Dragon Frontiers
101 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Dragon Frontiers
EX Power Keepers
108 cards
Top price cards
About this set EX Power Keepers
The 27 Gold Stars: the EX era's grail
Quick answer: Gold Stars (officially "Pokémon ☆", Pokémon Star) are the cards depicting a Pokémon's shiny variant, with a gold star next to the name and artwork breaking out of its illustration window. Exactly 27 exist in English within the EX era (2004–2007), the estimated pull rate was one per 72 packs, and today they rank among the most valuable cards in TCG history: the Holon Phantoms Pikachu ☆ trades around six figures in PSA 10.
The "Gold Star" nickname came from collectors — PSA adopted it on its labels — but Bulbapedia's official name is "Pokémon ☆". The visual formula is unmistakable: the Pokémon in its alternate (shiny) coloration, art bursting past the illustration frame, and a gold foil rarity treatment. They are the direct heirs of the Shining cards of Neo Revelation and Neo Destiny we covered in Part 2 — and the ancestors of the entire modern shiny ecosystem.
On scarcity it pays to be precise, because Nintendo never published official odds. The most-cited expert estimate (Scott Pratte via PSA, corroborated by community box-opening data on Elite Fourum) is roughly one Gold Star of any kind per 72 packs — one every two 36-pack boxes. And that's the key nuance: any Gold Star. Pulling a specific one was another story: the EX Deoxys Rayquaza ☆ is estimated at around one per five boxes.
A heads-up for anyone collecting off modern databases: this article always means the 27 English Gold Stars of the EX era. Japan had its own exclusives (the Players Club Espeon ☆ and Umbreon ☆ we cover below) and the mechanic has had modern revivals — the Celebrations Pikachu ☆ (2021), the Sword & Shield Greninja ☆ — that inflate the count in today's listings.
The full roster, set by set (PSA 10)
All 27, with their artwork. Click any card to see it in high resolution — because that's what this is all about: shiny art spilling out of its window.
EX Team Rocket Returns
2004 · 3 Gold StarEX Deoxys
2005 · 3 Gold StarEX Unseen Forces
2005 · 3 Gold StarEX Delta Species
2005 · 3 Gold StarEX Legend Maker
2006 · 3 Gold StarEX Holon Phantoms
2006 · 3 Gold StarEX Crystal Guardians
2006 · 2 Gold StarEX Dragon Frontiers
2006 · 2 Gold StarEX Power Keepers
2007 · 3 Gold StarPOP Series 5
2007 · 2 Gold Star* Mewtwo ☆ is the least reliable figure here: aggregators agree on ≈$72,000, but 2026 sales and listings sit well below. An extremely thin market. ** The Charizard ☆ δ market column lags reality: a PSA 10 sale of $195,200 was documented in May 2026, and hobby press already treats it as a six-figure card.
The three Gold Star pillars
Three ways to understand the era — click any card to zoom in.
Espeon ☆ and Umbreon ☆: the finale outside the packs
The last two English Gold Stars didn't come from any expansion: Espeon ☆ (16/17) and Umbreon ☆ (17/17) belong to POP Series 5, a 17-card mini-set distributed between March and September 2007 through Organized Play and affiliated products (note: it's not true they "were never sold in stores" — late-2007 DP Value Packs at Walmart and Target included POP 5 packs). They're also the only English Gold Stars without a holo finish: PSA literally catalogs them as "Gold Star Non Holo".
Their Japanese cousins aren't just a different story — they're different cards. In Japan, Espeon ☆ and Umbreon ☆ were handed out as Players Club prizes (the Daisuki Pokémon Fan Club, 2005–2006) and carry their own numbering: 025/PLAY and 026/PLAY, versus POP 5's 16/17 and 17/17. You earned them by accumulating experience points at official events: 40,000 points for Espeon ☆ and 70,000 for Umbreon ☆ — a threshold equivalent to attending roughly 191 events, and open only to residents of Japan.
The scarcity gap between the two versions is enormous, and it's documented in PSA's pop report. The English POP 5 cards have 740 graded copies for Umbreon ☆ and 737 for Espeon ☆, and of those 740 only 52 reach PSA 10 (under 7%). The 70,000-point Japanese card stood at 22 graded copies in the 2020 count: more than thirty times scarcer than its English counterpart. Important, so you don't get confused when buying: the English versions were not Players Club prizes — that mechanism was exclusively Japanese.
The innovations of the EX era
Pokémon-ex: risk as a mechanic
The lowercase changed everything. Pokémon-ex (EX Ruby & Sapphire, 2003) were supercharged versions of regular Pokémon with a price attached: when knocked out, your opponent takes two Prize cards instead of one. If that formula sounds modern, it's because it is: Scarlet & Violet's Pokémon ex are mechanically identical to 2003's — same name for rules purposes, same two-Prize penalty (for regular ex; since September 2025, Mega ex give up three). The only formal difference is the Rule Box, which EX-era cards didn't carry. Beware one false friend: the uppercase "Pokémon-EX" of Black & White and XY is a separate mechanic, and effects for one don't apply to the other.
The Gold Stars
The crown jewels, with their own section above. As a game mechanic, Gold Stars were deliberately modest — low-HP Basic Pokémon with one powerful but situational attack, limited to one per deck — because their reason to exist was never competitive play: it was the display case. The rule "you can't have more than 1 Pokémon ☆ in your deck" is printed on every one of them.
δ Delta Species and the Holon saga
From EX Delta Species (October 2005) to EX Dragon Frontiers (November 2006), the era ran its most ambitious narrative arc: δ (Delta Species) Pokémon, creatures whose type doesn't match their species' natural one — a Lightning-type Charmander δ that nonetheless keeps its original Water weakness. You spot them by the "δ Delta Species" stamp between the name and HP and the DNA double helix running along the illustration frame. The backdrop is the Holon region, a research territory whose electromagnetic interference explains the anomaly in-universe — the first time the TCG built its own region with continuity across sets.
δ cards appeared across seven English sets: EX Delta Species, EX Legend Maker (a single card: the secret Pikachu δ #93/92), EX Holon Phantoms, EX Crystal Guardians, EX Dragon Frontiers — the last main set with δ, almost entirely devoted to them — plus the POP Series 4 and POP Series 5 mini-sets. EX Power Keepers, curiously, included none.
Farewell to the e-Reader
The EX era also buried a technology. Wizards' 2002–2003 sets (Expedition, Aquapolis and Skyridge) had been built around the Nintendo e-Reader and its scannable data strips. Nintendo kept the strips when it took over the TCG… briefly: EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua (March 2004) was the last English set with e-Reader support. From EX Hidden Legends onward the strips vanished, and with them the game's most expensive, least understood experiment.
The chase cards and grails of each set
Chosen for cultural weight, historical importance and real PSA 10 market value. For how this era's rarities work, see our Pokémon TCG rarity guide.
EX Ruby & Sapphire — Grail and Top 3
The grail is Mewtwo ex (#101/109): the founding generation's most iconic Pokémon, in the set that debuted the ex mechanic, with PSA 10 sales around $23,000 — roughly seventy times its current raw price, a measure of how brutal this set is to grade. Sneasel ex (#103) trades around $3,000 in PSA 10 and Scyther ex (#102) closes the podium around $1,800–2,400.
EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua — Grail and Top 3
The grail is Suicune ex (#94/95), a Ryo Ueda masterpiece and one of the era's most beautiful cards: its 2026 PSA 10 sales hover around $12,000. Sceptile ex (#93) — the faction set's favorite starter — trades around $6,000, and Swampert ex (#95) around $4,000–5,800. The two secrets, Absol and Jirachi, are cult chases in raw.
EX Team Rocket Returns — Grail and Top 3
Here the podium is 100% Gold Star: Torchic ☆ (#108, ≈$64,300) is the era's surprise grail — a tiny PSA 10 population against enormous demand — followed by Treecko ☆ (#109, ≈$32,800) and Mudkip ☆ (#107, ≈$12,400). The non-Gold Star chases are serious too: Rocket's Mewtwo ex trades around $7,400–8,800 in PSA 10.
EX Deoxys — Grail and Top 3
The absolute grail is Rayquaza ☆ (#107/107): the most famous expansion Gold Star, with a PSA 10 market value around $48,600 and legendary scarcity (≈1 per 5 boxes). Latios ☆ (#106, ≈$32,800) and Latias ☆ (#105, ≈$19,300) complete the dragon trio. Honorable mention for Rayquaza ex (#102), the era's most expensive raw chase ($999 today).
EX Unseen Forces — Grail and Top 3
Johto's three legendary beasts in Gold Star form rule the set: Raikou ☆ (#114, ≈$12,900), Entei ☆ (#113, ≈$12,200) and Suicune ☆ (#115, ≈$11,300) — a direct echo of their first holo versions in Neo Revelation. Behind them, the secret Celebi ex (#117/115) trades around $6,200–12,000 in PSA 10.
EX Delta Species — Grail and Top 3
Kyogre ☆ (#112, ≈$15,900) and Groudon ☆ (#111, ≈$15,100) lead a set whose third Gold Star, Metagross ☆ (#113, ≈$8,600), is the "accessible" one for anyone looking to join the club. All three share a cataloging quirk: some modern catalogs (TCGdex among them) don't index them with the ☆ symbol, so they surface in searches less than they should.
EX Dragon Frontiers — Grail and Top 3
The grail is Charizard ☆ δ (#100/101), the black Darkness-type shiny Charizard: the market column reads ≈$58,000, but reality runs ahead — a documented $195,200 sale in May 2026. Mew ☆ δ (#101, ≈$27,100) and Rayquaza ex δ (#97, ≈$12,300–15,200) complete the podium of the era's last great set.
EX Power Keepers — Grail and Top 3
The perfect send-off: the three Eeveelution Gold Stars. Jolteon ☆ (#101, ≈$31,100) leads ahead of Vaporeon ☆ (#102, ≈$26,400) and Flareon ☆ (#100, ≈$25,200). The Eevee fandom's devotion — the same force behind the Neo Discovery Umbreon from Part 2 — keeps all three in permanent demand.
The chase ex, live: raw prices today
Graded Gold Stars live in a market of their own, but the era's chase Pokémon-ex still trade raw with an active TCGPlayer market. These prices update every 24 hours — aggregators don't provide reliable raw pricing for Gold Stars (markets far too thin), so the list is limited to the ex. Click any card to enlarge it:
Prices updated on July 19, 2026 · TCGPlayer via TCGdex
Errors and curiosities of the era
The EX era holds a distinction no era before it could claim: it's the first era with no censored cards in the jump from Japan to the West. After the Wizards-era cases — Moo-Moo Milk and company in Part 2 — no 2003–2007 artwork needed retouching. What the era did leave behind is a remarkable collection of errata and production oddities:
- The two-cost Marill (EX Sandstorm): two versions exist, identical except for the Retreat Cost — one with one Energy, one with zero. An estimated third to half of the print run came out "free". It was never corrected: the official ruling was to play the card as printed.
- The Mew δ whose error is the norm (POP Series 5, #3/17): most holo copies shipped with an inverted card back (upside-down Poké Ball) and a double holo layer. An estimated 10% of copies do not have the error — on this card, the correct version is the rare one.
- Pokémon Reversal (EX Ruby & Sapphire): mistranslated with a 2-on-2 format clause that didn't exist in the original. It received official errata and was reprinted corrected in EX FireRed & LeafGreen.
- Sitrus Berry (EX Unseen Forces): official text errata — from "between turns" to "at the end of each turn", a change that altered the effect's real timing.
- The never-corrected typo collection: Team Magma's Camerupt reads "Mamga's", Team Aqua's Electrike asks you to "fllip a coin", Hypno and Drowzee spell "Drowsee", and Ditto and Lanturn say "more then". None were ever fixed.
- Starmie with artwork from the past (EX Deoxys #48): its evolution box uses Gen 1 Staryu stock art instead of the current artwork — a 1999 visual fossil embedded in 2005.
- EX Emerald doesn't exist in Japan: it's the era's only main expansion compiled exclusively for the West. And its mirror image: EX Power Keepers' Japanese counterpart (World Champions Pack) shipped after Japan had already entered the Diamond & Pearl era.
Errata have to be seen. Here are the ones you can point a finger at — enlarge any of them and hunt for the mistake:
Two deliberate omissions: the "fllip" Team Aqua's Electrike exists in three different printings (#27, #52 and #53) and we couldn't confirm which one carries the typo, so we'd rather not show you the wrong card. And the "Drowsee" on Hypno and Drowzee and the "more then" on Ditto and Lanturn are spread across several sets of the era with no single printing to point at. Raw prices are TCGPlayer as of publication; Mew δ, Pokémon Reversal and Pikachu δ only have Cardmarket quotes, which we don't use as a reference.
About the prices
The PSA 10 prices shown are market values as of publication (July 2026), taken from graded-price columns of aggregators (the PriceCharting model: aggregated recent eBay sales) and cross-checked against PokeTrace and Card Ladder sales records. They are not auction records: they represent what buying the card costs today.
That said, graded cards from this era trade in very thin markets: some Gold Stars record one or two PSA 10 sales a year, and in those cases the "market column" can lag reality — the extreme example is Charizard ☆ δ, with a column around $58,000 against a real $195,200 sale in May 2026. Where aggregators diverge sharply (Mewtwo ☆, Umbreon ☆) we show the full range rather than fake precision. Figures are rounded; for buy or sell decisions, always verify actual sales history in the sources below.
Raw prices in the live gallery are TCGPlayer Near Mint market values via TCGdex, refreshed every 24 hours. As throughout this series, "at publish" prices are historical evidence and are never modified after publication.
Data and price sources
Historical and card data (authority):
- Bulbapedia — EX Ruby & Sapphire · EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua · EX Team Rocket Returns · EX Deoxys · EX Unseen Forces · EX Delta Species · EX Dragon Frontiers · EX Power Keepers
- Bulbapedia — Pokémon ☆ (Gold Star) · Delta Species · POP Series 5 · Error cards · Errata
- PSA — Set Registry: 2003 EX Ruby & Sapphire
- PokéBeach — official EX Power Keepers press release (Nov. 2006)
- Serebii — PLAY Promotional #26: Umbreon Star (the Japanese Players Club version)
Graded populations (PSA Population Report):
- PSA Pop Report — 2007 Pokémon POP Series 5, mirrored in browsable form at Pikawiz — 740 copies of Umbreon ☆ (52 in PSA 10) and 737 of Espeon ☆
- PSA Pop Report — 2005 Pokémon Japanese Play Promo — the figure of 22 graded copies for the 70,000-point Umbreon ☆ is from the 2020 count and may be somewhat higher today
PSA 10 prices (market values):
- PriceCharting and same-model aggregators (pokeinvest.io) — per-card PSA 10 column
- Card Ladder and PSA Auction Prices Realized — documented sales history
- PokeTrace — aggregated eBay sales by grade (queried July 18, 2026)
- Site raw pricing via TCGdex (TCGPlayer data)
Series · Part 2
Missed the previous chapter? Johto and the end of Wizards (2000–2003)
The first Shining cards, the Reverse Holo, the Crystal Pokémon and the e-Card sets whose demise opened the door to the EX era.
Read Part 2: Neo, e-Card, Shining and Crystal Pokémon →