It turns out that there are a lot of different golden, gold metal, metal, gold plated, and other gold Pokémon cards and otherwise out in the market. Some are real Pokémon cards, some are Pokémon production items, and some are just Alibaba knock-offs.
It likely that you or your child has run across these items before and you’ve undoubtably wondered what they are. Are they real? Is it a legitimate Pokémon product? Is it worth anything?
Well fear not faithful reader, we will dive into a slew of golden Pokémon items below and tell you everything you need to know about them!
If there’s any I missed, please let me know in the comments below!
Real Metal Pokémon Cards
There are currently only 5 real metal Pokémon production cards that were produced for the masses. It might be a little surprising even if you’ve held one or not. They are decently heavy and are very cool (in my humble opinion) as they are actually made out of metal.
One is the Pokémon Celebrations Premium Collection Charizard. The next is the Pokémon Celebrations Premium Collection Pikachu. And then we have a Mew ex Metal UPC from the English 151 Collection. These three actually look like they may be made of gold (which they are unfortunately not).
The next is an Arceus V – 122/172 Metal Card and the final is an Arceus VSTAR – 123/172 Metal Card.
All five are in fact metal and were made by the Pokémon company. Any others may be a real Pokémon product but are not part of the Pokémon card game. A picture of the first three cards is below.
See? Told you they were cool.
Let’s get to some others that you may run into.
Fake Gold Pokémon Cards
The above cards and others like them have made their way into seemingly every kids Pokémon binder at this point. They do look cool and if you are savvy enough, then you know the images of the above are from real Pokémon cards.
Despite that though, these gold cards are all NOT authentic Pokémon product. They are definitely an eye-catching alternative but were custom made by others outside of the Pokémon company.
They do look pretty cool though, which probably gets you wondering if they are worth anything. Unfortunately, the answer is no. You can head to AliExpress and grab about 50 of them for somewhere between $2-5.
Let’s get to some other similar products below!
Real Gold Pokémon Cards
Despite there being some fake gold Pokémon cards out in the world, there are in fact real gold (looking) cards as well!
All of the above are legitimate Pokémon cards, unlike the ones in the section above. If you’re having trouble telling the two apart, just flip the card over! The gold cards pictured in the fake section above will have a golden back, while the real cards will have a back that look like every other Pokémon card!
These 4 are just a small handful of real golden Pokémon cards. There are quite a few others from the Sword and Shield sets not included here.
Concerned about it being fake? I personally haven’t seen any good looking fakes of these real ones above. So if you have one that looks like the above with a normal Pokémon card back, you should be holding a real Pokémon card!
If you want to learn more about fake Pokémon cards, check out my other article!
Real Black Gold Pokémon Cards
But wait, there’s more! Some authentic Pokémon cards have been printed with gold on a black background.
The 4 above are real Pokémon cards. They should have a textured gold with a shiny black background.
Unfortunately, there are fake gold and black cards, but they aren’t as nearly as popular as the gold ones. If you’re unsure, just look at the back of the card!
The fake AliExpress versions will be a black back, while the real ones will have a back that looks like every other Pokémon card.
Real Ancient Mew Movie Promo Card
Now THIS is a card that can throw some people off. If you don’t know what it is or where it’s from, it will be incredibly hard to figure it out. It has no identifiable markings or words and doesn’t look like any other Pokémon card on the market.
That being said, this is a REAL Ancient Mew Pokémon Card. It was released and given out when the Pokémon the Movie 2000: The Power of One movie released.
The fact that it’s real and doesn’t look like anything else makes it pretty dang cool. And if you like it enough, you can pick one up for $5-30.
Gold Plated Pokémon Cards
Moving off of Pokémon cards, there were some other gold Pokémon items that are definitely worth mentioning in this article. The above is one of them.
This is not technically a real Pokémon card, but it is in fact a real Pokémon products! The gold plated Charizard pictured above among others were actually due to a partnership between Burger King and Pokemon in 1999.
These were released with 6 different Pokémon. Charizard, Mewtwo, Jigglypuff, Polywhirl, Pikachu, and Togepi.
If you have them already, unfortunately they aren’t worth a tremendous amount. Fortunately then if you don’t and want them, it shouldn’t cost more than $10-30 for each.
Let’s be real though. This was probably the best toy/item ever given in any fast food kids meal ever. What a time to be alive.
Real 24 Karat Gold Pikachu Pokémon Card
Now, THIS is a gold Pikachu. Literally.
Turns out that Nintendo partnered with the jewelry company Ginza Tanaka and made 1700 solid 24 karat gold Pikachu cards. They were only released in Japan and getting one required you to pay FAR over retail value. That being said, there is only one sold on the PSA website, and it went for $29,520.
As far as gold cards go, this may be the holy grail.
Conclusion
There are a lot of real and fake golden Pokémon cards and items in the market. Some are quite valuable while others can easily be picked up for less than $10.
Regardless of the price tags, there are a lot of cool ones that are worth adding to any Pokémon collection. If you weren’t aware of what some of them were, hopefully this was useful.
If I missed anything or if you have any comments, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at [email protected]!
Thanks for reading!
Want to see some of the most expensive Charizard cards you can buy? Look no further.
Looking to buy some Charizard cards and actually want to see the cheapest ones there are? Got you covered there as well.
Concerned about other fake cards as well? I cover a ton of them here.
