Index of terms for a newbie?

[voltagic]

@deltazero

I am not sure if there is such a thread, but I can explain to you the basics of what those two terms mean.
“Thick stamp”
This refers to the printing of 1st Edition base set cards. Sometimes, 1st edition symbol was printed thicker than the other cards. There are people who are much more the expert on what this means in terms of value, the history, etc., so I will leave it at that.

“Gold Star”
WOTC stopped making Pokemon cards after the e-series era. Nintendo picked up making Pokemon cards and started the ex series that included pokemon from the Ruby and Sapphire games. Ex cards were a rarity beyond regular holofoil. For the sets Ex Team Rocket Returns, Ex Deoxys, Ex Unseen Forces, Ex Delta Species, Ex Legend Maker, Ex Holon Phantoms, Ex Crystal Guardians, Ex Dragon Frontiers and finally Ex Power Keepers they had an additional rarity called gold stars. These cards were kind of like shining Pokemon from Neo- a good amount of the art had the shiny versions of the pokemon depicted (not all of the gold star pokemon are shiny). The most important commonality they had was that they each had a gold star next to their name on the card. Hence the name “Gold Star.” There were 3 in every set and I think that 1 would appear in approximately every 2 booster boxes. Not only is the art considered very good, but these sets came out during a low point of Pokemon popularity. Therefore, Nintendo did not print as many cards and people were not buying as much product. This means that not only were the cards more desirable when Pokemon had a revival in popularity, but they were also a bit harder to find than other set cards.

I hope this helps.
Happy to try and answer more questions if you have!

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t Thick/Thin stamp mainly refer to actually the width of the “1” in the stamp?

When I re-entered the hobby in 2018 (I believe) this one confused me for a while to be fair. Because the word “Edition” of the “thick” actually appears to be thinner in printing, and it appears to be thicker in the “thin” stamp. Properly confusing!

I believe the variation that appears to be printed thinner in terms of ink, is referred to as “Ghost stamp”.

Edit: older thread discussing exactly this topic: www.elitefourum.com/t/thick-vs-thin-stamp/17503/1

6th post in there has a comparison picture mentioning exactly the above.