Does anyone know how rare japanese gold stars are compared to english (excluding the eeveelution PLAY promos)?
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Following for knowledge
How do you define “rare?” Is it total number of cards printed overall? Is it pull ratio? Is it market availability in the current time? Is it price? Is it high grade PSA population? Rarity can be defined in so many ways it’s impossible to answer the question without knowing which type of rarity you’re referring to.
Also japanese has a 1st ed printrun, is it more scarce than unlimited?
Was thinking mostly in the amount printed. I see now that rare may not have been the best word to use. The main reason I’m wondering is that some of the japanese gold stars seem to have been distributed through different methods than just being in sets (i.e. Pikachu and Mewtwo in the Mew • Lucario gift box) and that there may be a difference in the amount printed of these. As far as I have found nobody knows the print runs, but I thought that some people on here may know something more about this.
In terms of amount printed, Japanese is almost always lower than English with set cards. So I think it’s a pretty fair bet to say that every set-based Japanese gold star has a fewer actual number printed than English. Things like the Gift Box gold stars are a bit more difficult because we don’t have any kind of idea how many of those were printed and how that compares to Japanese print numbers overall. Finding actual print run numbers is something nobody has really ever done. So for those cards we can’t really say for certain. I’d say there are more Gift Box gold stars out there than normal set-based ones, but I don’t know if it closes the gap enough to equal or eclipse English.
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Other way round
For Japanese ex era sets its a little of both. In Clash of the Blue Sky, 1st edition is rarer than unlimited. Other sets like Golden Sky, Silvery Ocean and World Champions Pack unlimited is rarer. Then there are a bunch of sets where there isn’t enough of a difference for it to be noticeable. As such you won’t see much of a premium either way for 1st edition or unlimited Japanese ex era stuff, outside of where there’s a big discrepancy (1ED Clash of the Blue Sky, UED WCP for example).
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@fourthstartcg thanks for the answers, I appreciate it!
A possibly interesting piece of trivia on Japan’s World Champions Pack set: it’s believed that the Gold Star cards from that set are easier to pull than the non-holo rare cards - the set was designed to give Japanese players quick access to tournament-legal cards which had only at the time been released outside of Japan, so it was heavily weighted towards playable cards over fluff.
That isn’t to say that the Gold Star cards from the World Champions Pack set aren’t stupidly rare, however - the 1st edition set was only available online to participating players who had enough points and the unlimited set was only available for competitors to buy at Spring Battle Road 2008 events.
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Small correct, but I’m pretty sure the non-Holo Rares and Gold Stars, as well as Holofoil Rares and other Ultra/Secret Rares (i.e. Pokémon ex) all had the exact same pull rates in the World Champions Pack set; so the Gold Star cards aren’t easier to pull than non-Holo Rare cards. We do however see the Gold Stars more often for sale despite having the same pull rate, since a Flareon Gold Star is simply more popular to put up for sale then, let’s say, a non-Holo Rare Seviper (just a random example 
).
Greetz,
Quuador
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@quuador you’re correct but what I meant was more that the chance of pulling a given non-holo rare is lower than the chance of pulling a Gold Star - I think there are around 26 non-holo rare cards in the set compared to only 3 Gold Star cards, loosely implying that there are almost 10 Gold Star cards for each non-holo card.
Edit: 26, not 96!
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Each pack came with a guaranteed holo and 3 non-holo rares though.
Thus the chance of pulling a specific non-holo rare is about 1:9 while pulling a specific gold star is 1:24 (assuming gold stars, ex and holos have the same pull rate)
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Hmm, it seems you’re right on that. I’m not sure where I read that the pull rates were more heavily weighted more towards tournament-playable cards. I wonder if that’s specific to the unlimited set instead - which I believe was only purchasable by competitors at Spring Battle Road 2008 tournaments. I’ll have to do more research into that.
From a bit of quick reading about the 1st edition set it appears that a case of 12 packs has a fixed 1 Gold Star, 7 ex, 4 holo rare and 36 non-holo rare pull rate. This definitely backs up what you’ve said. This gives us a 2.8% chance of pulling a specific Gold Star, a 7.3% chance of pulling a specific ex card, a 6.7% chance of pulling a specific holo rare card and a 10.34% chance of pulling a specific non-holo rare card - or ultimately 3.7x non-holo rare cards for every Gold Star card.
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