Question about Gold Star Umbreon Card

General
1

Hi all,

Been lurking for a long time. Finally decided to create an ID.

Most questions I have always found an answer to by searching and never had to ask a question. I have finally come across the opportunity to own a Gold Star Umbreon 17/17 from the POP5 Series. Owner is a friend of a friend of mine, which I have been longing to have since I first started collecting.

I have never held or seen one up close, and after countless searching of images online, I can not quantifiably be sure of making the purchase now that the opportunity arises.

I saw the sellers Gold Star Umbreon for the first time up close in my hands. One thing I noticed is that the area where there is supposed to be a gold star overlay, it was just a regular yellow star. Once I saw that, I told the seller that I need some time to think about it, without burning bridges incase it was a legitimate card. I rushed home to do some research on my own, and now also hoping to seek advice from everyone here that has a gold star umbreon.

I have a very small collection of gold star cards as I got priced out of the market…but the umbreon is proving too tempting.

Anyways, all the ones I do have, the star up at the top left of the card has always had a ‘shiny gold’ trim embossed/overlaid on top of the yellow star.

I checked on photos online, when people take a photo, you can always see that star slightly darker…possibly from the light reflection from the angle of the photo.

Now, when it comes to the Umbreon, every photo I see online I really can not tell if there is that darker outline from the lighting.

Are my eyes fooling me? Does the Umbreon Gold Star Card also have that metallic gold lining on the large yellow star and I just can’t see it in the photos?

Am I too eager to obtain this card and trying to convince myself that the sellers card is real, despite missing that gold border on the large star?

I hope someone that owns a gold star umbreon can provide me with some advice. I really want the card. The umbreon gold star card, is the star supposed to have the gold trim or is it just a yellow star?

Thank you for you time.

Regards,

CrzyJoe

2 Likes
2

Hi!

Unfortunately the Gold Star Umbreon is not a holographic card. All cards in POP series that were not release promotionally are non-holo

Only in Japanese did the Umbreon and Espeon Gold Star cards get the beautiful Gold Star Treatment!

5 Likes
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Both the umbreon and espeon from POP Series 5 are completely non-holo

4

^ both statements are correct and that’s also one of the reasons that makes this card significantly harder to obtain than the other gold stars: they can’t be weighed since you can’t tell the holo weight differences.

Hope this easies your concerns :blush: Let us know if you make the deal! :grin:

1 Like
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That’s neat this came up; just today I looked up a Cyndaquil card that’s been bugging me and I finally sorted out the one with the gold star stamp is the one from Champion’s Road and the normal stamp is from the World Hobby Fair.

Anyways, @crzyjoe, are you going to get it?

6

Well, that certainly eases my concern.

Yes, the person has had the card for the last 10 years. I just never got to see it up close as I did not know them personally. Just through friends of friends, and he was not super sociable whenever we did get our local pokemon group together.

Not a small amount to fork out, so I still wanted to be extra careful. I always saw the gold reflection on the japanese issued cards for umbreon. Just could never tell on the North American ones.

I think I will text my friend and ask if we can arrange for another meet.

Thank you all that responded and I will post pics if I am able to obtain it.

Regards,

CrzyJoe

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Just send it straight away for grading, and if it comes back non-authentic just go take out his kneecaps with a bat, hehe (or just ask for a refund)

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That’s not why they’re harder to obtain. They’re harder to obtain because POP Series print runs were WAYYYYYYYYYY lower than normal set print runs. POP Series wasn’t a regular set that you could just go to Walmart or your local toy store and purchase. Much more limited distribution.

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Yes, at first I thought there may be way more than we know of. Read somewhere pull rates were 1:40 so the odds were a lot better than regular gold stars. But realized I based it on the flawed premise that they issued as many of these packs as they did booster boxes. It just cant be the case. (Pun intended)

But seeing people sell the pop5 packs online always makes me wonder, who and how they got so many in the first place. I remember when they were sold for 50 bucks a pop (I just cant stop the puns!)

Thinking 50 was expensive back in the day. Now it is like… do I really want to pay 500 a pack for a chance?

20/20 hindsight is awesome, I’ll laugh one day when I re-read this post and they are 5000 a pack!

Cheers,

CrzyJoe

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The amount of sealed POP Series product available is misleading. Because it was distributed to tournament organizers rather than larger retail stores, a lot of product wasn’t distributed as intended. There are quite a few people who have hoarded these packs, so there is a lot of sealed product out there and constantly available. I recently spent some of my Troll and Toad store credit on POP Series packs (basically bought out most of their inventory). And what do you know, the next day a nearly equal amount of POP Series packs were relisted by the same EVO vendor, but at higher prices.

And because the EV of sealed product is so bad, not many of these packs are getting opened. So the cards are much scarcer than the sealed product. I’ve had a tough time finding certain cards at any price (looking at you Sceptile 5/17 from POP Series 4!). But I can buy a gazillion POP Series 4 packs if I wanted to.