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8 minutes of readingEvery year around the holidays, searches for "Pokémon metal card" and "gold Pokémon card" spike, often from parents looking for a gift. The problem: the top results are bundles of gold cards for a few pounds on marketplaces, and none of them are official. Real metal cards are rare, they have never been sold in booster packs, and you can count them on two hands with fingers to spare. This guide goes through them box by box.
A Pokémon metal card is a metal reproduction of an existing Pokémon TCG card. Same size as a regular card, but an engraved metal plate instead of cardboard: it weighs around 20 grams, compared with barely 2 grams for a normal card. The Pokémon Company never sells them on their own: they are the centrepiece of a few high-end boxes, the Ultra-Premium Collections.
Don't confuse them with cardboard "gold" cards. For years, many expansions have included gold secret cards (Hyper Rare, Gold Secret Rare...). They are shiny and sought after, but they are perfectly normal cardboard cards pulled from booster packs. The Celebrations box actually contained both two metal cards and a gold cardboard Pikachu V. So "gold card" does not mean "metal card".
To date, there are 6 official Pokémon metal cards, spread across 4 products released between 2021 and 2024. All of them reproduce existing cards and keep the original card number:
These are the first two metal cards in the history of the TCG. For Pokémon's 25th anniversary, the Celebrations Ultra-Premium Collection, released in October 2021, included gold reproductions of the Base Set Charizard and Pikachu from 1999, with their original artwork by Mitsuhiro Arita. Worth knowing: these two metal cards only exist in English, even in the French version of the box.
They are also the two most sought-after metal cards. Charizard, the most famous card in the TCG, is the star here: it is the most expensive metal card, ahead of Pikachu. The box itself has become a collector's item and now resells sealed for several hundred pounds.
A year later, The Pokémon Company did it again with the Arceus VSTAR Ultra-Premium Collection, released on 4 November 2022 and sold exclusively at GameStop in the United States for $99.99. This time it contained two metal cards at once: Arceus V 122/172 and Arceus VSTAR 123/172, both from the Brilliant Stars expansion. Printed in larger numbers and less iconic than the Celebrations pair, they are now the most affordable metal cards.
Released on 6 October 2023, the Ultra-Premium Collection of Scarlet & Violet 151 (the set celebrating the 151 first-generation Pokémon) contained a gold metal Mew ex 205/165. No coincidence: Mew is Pokémon no. 151 in the Pokédex. It is the only Scarlet & Violet era metal card released in Europe.
The sixth card is the least known in Europe. The Greninja ex collection, released on 1 November 2024, was exclusive to GameStop stores in the United States. It contained an etched metal Greninja ex 106/167, reprinted from the Twilight Masquerade expansion. It was never officially distributed in the UK or Europe: if you want one, you will have to import it or buy it second-hand.
Here are the average prices recorded in spring 2026 for a raw (ungraded) card in good condition:
The gap gets huge for perfect copies. Metal scratches and dents easily, and many cards come out of the box with small flaws: a metal Charizard graded 10 trades for around €9,500 and a Pikachu graded 10 for around €6,800, while the other metal cards in grade 10 sit around €200. Prices move fast, so treat them as a ballpark. A useful rule of thumb: a "metal" card sold for £2 or £3 is always fake.
Counterfeit "gold" or "metal" cards flood Amazon, AliExpress, Temu and social media, often in bundles of 10 to 55 cards with a gold box. They mostly target children and parents who don't know the TCG. A few checks are enough to spot them:
To go further, our guide on how to tell if a Pokémon card is real covers the checks that work for every card, and our list of Pokémon scam websites names the fake shops to avoid.
This is the one exception you may come across in a collection. In late 1999, Burger King in the United States gave away six 23-karat gold-plated cards with its kids' meals: Charizard, Mewtwo, Pikachu, Jigglypuff, Poliwhirl and Togepi. Each card came in a plastic case with a certificate of authenticity. They are genuine official items, but not TCG cards: they don't reproduce any card from the game and don't count among the TCG metal cards. A complete set usually sells for $150 to $300.
Play with it, no. Metal cards are collectibles: their weight and thickness make them impossible to shuffle into a deck, and they are not allowed in official tournaments. They don't replace the original card, which is still the one you play with.
Grade it, yes! PCC Grading grades Pokémon metal cards, and this is where the grade makes the biggest difference, given the price gap between a raw copy and a perfect one (see why get your cards graded). Just send it with your order, well protected: its weight makes it more sensitive to knocks in transit.
No metal card was released in 2025, and the product listings for the Pokémon 30th anniversary Ultra-Premium Collections (out in November 2026) mention foil promo cards and a metal coin, but no metal card. The format remains rare and reserved for a few exceptional boxes. The whole 30th anniversary line-up is in our article on Pokémon TCG 30th anniversary releases.
How many Pokémon metal cards are there? Six official cards: Charizard and Pikachu (2021), Arceus V and Arceus VSTAR (2022), Mew ex (2023) and Greninja ex (2024).
Where can I buy a real Pokémon metal card? Either in the original Ultra-Premium Collection (sealed, on the second-hand market) or as a single from a specialist retailer or on Cardmarket. Avoid cheap bundles on general marketplaces.
Is a gold Pokémon card made of metal? Not necessarily. Most "gold" cards are gold secret cards made of cardboard, pulled from booster packs. Only the 6 cards on this list are metal.
What is the most expensive Pokémon metal card? The Celebrations Charizard 4/102: around €166 raw and nearly €9,500 graded 10.
Grading
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