30th Celebration: the most expensive cards and what they are worth now

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30th Celebration came out on Wednesday 16 September 2026, and it did something the Pokémon Trading Card Game has never done in thirty years: the same release day worldwide, Japan included. No Japanese edition three months ahead, no window where prices form somewhere else before reaching everyone else.

Three weeks have passed and the market has had time to settle. This page is a real ranking, with prices collected on 7 October 2026, and next to the top cards you will also find what they were worth on 18 September, two days after release.

⚠️ In three weeks the set changed shape: every new card went down, some by two thirds, while the Classic Collection reprints held up much better. Today the most expensive card in the set is no longer the Charizard, it is the Aquapolis Lugia.

In short. The most expensive 30th Celebration card is the reprint of the Aquapolis Lugia (Crystal) at 209.64 €, ahead of the Base Set Charizard at 200.64 €. The most expensive new card is the Mew ex (152) Special Illustration Rare at 91.28 €, followed by Gengar ex (154) at 72.63 €. The two Futuristic Rares are down to 42.56 € (Mew ex) and 35.51 € (Mewtwo ex), less than a third of their 18 September price. The 30 Pikachu sit between 0.11 € and 1.60 €. CardTrader data, lowest Near Mint listings, collected on 7 October 2026.

The most expensive 30th Celebration cards

This is the ranking as of 7 October 2026. Real lowest listings, Near Mint condition.

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The top two spots belong to Classic Collection reprints, and the first card drawn for this set comes third, at less than half the price of the two above it.

Sign up to DarkDex for free and add 30th Celebration to your collection: the value updates itself, card by card, without you having to chase anything.

How far they fell since release

The most useful comparison is with 18 September, the first day almost every single had a price:

The two reprints at the top lost between 5 and 11%. The new cards lost between 30 and 78%, and none went up. The clearest case is Sylveon ex, which on 18 September was worth as much as the Futuristic Rares and is now worth a fifth of that. The Futuristic Rares, the rarity that debuts with this set, are the new cards that fell the most along with it: the novelty of the label made the price in the first days and then wore off.

What the whole set is worth

Of the set's 200 singles, 199 have a price. We leave out the two gold Mew ex outside the numbering (G and B): the asking prices for those two cards are off the scale and do not describe a market. Adding up the lowest listing of the other 197 gives 1,400.73 €, against 2,499.54 € on 18 September. The value is still concentrated in a handful of cards:

• only 2 cards sit above 100 €, and seven cards are enough to pass half the value of the whole set
• the median is 0.11 €, the floor of the market: half the cards in 30th Celebration cost eleven cents
• 137 of 197 cards are under one euro, and 106 sit exactly at the 0.11 € minimum

Reprints against new cards: the overtake has already happened

The Classic Collection brings 30 reprints, all of them priced. The new cards with a price are 167. On 18 September the two groups were worth about the same. Three weeks later that is no longer true:

The new cards lost more than half of their value (-56%), the reprints less than a third (-30%). The value of the new cards hangs entirely on the ten Special Illustration Rares and the two Futuristic Rares: together they make 502 € of the 575, and below those twelve cards there is nothing.

And that is exactly the road the twin set already travelled, five years ago.

The 25th anniversary set, five years on

Celebrations came out in October 2021 with exactly the same architecture: 25 new cards plus a Classic Collection of 25 reprints, all holographic, enormous print run. These are its prices, lowest Near Mint listing:

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Fourteen of the first fifteen cards are Classic Collection reprints. The only new card that makes the ranking is Mew #025, and it lands third. In the 25th anniversary set the 25 reprints take 89% of the set's value, and the new cards have a median of 0.17 €: nine of them sit at exactly eleven cents, which is the floor of the market.

Comparing the two sets on the same metric shows where this is heading:

In three weeks 30th Celebration has travelled part of the road towards its twin: the reprints' share went from 47 to 59%, and the median new card is already at the floor. There are still nine new cards in the ranking, but they are worth much less than before. A reprint inherits the price of the original, a new card has to build its own, and almost none manage it.

The 30 Pikachu: the prediction was right

A guaranteed Pikachu in every pack means that, by construction, the 30 Pikachu are the least rare cards in the set: one comes out per pack, so there are as many of them as there are packs printed for a worldwide anniversary.

The prices confirm it with no wiggle room: all thirty sit between 0.11 € and 1.60 €, and half of them cost less than 22 cents. On 18 September the range was 1.60 € to 4.42 €: in three weeks the guaranteed Pikachu lost almost everything. Not even the most anticipated one held: the 01/30 drawn by Ken Sugimori, the original Pokémon designer, is down to the 0.11 € minimum.

The 25th anniversary set went the same way, with a single exception: _____'s Pikachu (WP24) at 40.52 €, which was not a new Pikachu but the reprint of a twenty-year-old Wizards promo. Same rule again: what makes the price is not the Pikachu, it is not being able to pull it from a pack. Who all thirty are, with numbers and illustrators, is in the dedicated article on the 30 Pikachu of 30th Celebration.

The chase cards of 30th Celebration

The most expensive new card in the set is now the Mew ex (152) Special Illustration Rare at 91.28 €, which has overtaken Gengar ex (154), down to 72.63 €. Behind them come the two secret Pikachu ex, Mewtwo ex (151) at 43.64 € and the two Futuristic Rares, Mew ex (158) at 42.56 € and Mewtwo ex (157) at 35.51 €. The debuting rarity did not keep a premium of its own: you pay for the illustration, not the label, and the top new cards are all Special Illustration Rares.

The most instructive number is another one, though: the gap between the same card in its regular and its secret version. In 30th Celebration the base set Pikachu ex and the secret Pikachu ex are the same Pokémon with the same attack:

More than a hundred times as much, for the same Pokémon in the same set, and the gap has grown since September: the regular versions fell more than the secret ones. What makes the price is not the Pokémon, it is the position in the numbering. The other secrets beyond 128, with images, are in the article on the 30th Celebration chase cards.

What is in 30th Celebration

The set code is 30C. The base set has 128 numbered cards, plus the secrets that go beyond 128 and push the total over 160. Three things set it apart from a normal expansion:

• Every card is holographic, basic energies included. There is no non-holo common.
• A guaranteed Pikachu in every pack, drawn from a group of 30 different illustrations, each by a different artist. They take the numbers from 023/128 to 052/128 and carry a second numbering from 01/30 to 30/30.
• A new rarity debuts, the Futuristic Rare, with lighting on the Pokémon and three-dimensional elements in the illustration. The first two cards to carry it are Mewtwo ex and Mew ex.

There is also a Classic Collection of 30 reprints spanning the whole history of the game, from the Base Set onwards: you can find all of them, with what each original costs today, on the page about the 30th Celebration Classic Collection. The products do not all come out on the same day: there are four waves up to 6 November, and the dates are on the page about the 30th Celebration release date. Which one is worth buying, with the real cost per pack, is in the product guide.

The 30th Celebration cards to watch

An operational summary, taken from the real prices above and not from feelings:

1. The Classic Collection reprints of cards that already cost a lot outside the set. They were 47% of the value on 18 September, they are 59% today, and in the twin set five years on they are 89%.
2. The Special Illustration Rares of the most loved Pokémon: Mew ex (152) and the two secret Pikachu ex are the new cards that lost the least in proportion, between 27 and 41%.
3. The secret versions of cards already in the base set, the numbers beyond 128. Here the gap is worth more than a hundred times.
4. To ignore: the guaranteed Pikachu, the holographic energies and the 27 starter Pokémon from 101 to 127. These are the cards everyone will have, and today all 27 sit at eleven cents.

Are 30th Celebration packs worth buying

Today's arithmetic is honest and needs saying: the 197 priced singles add up to 1,400.73 €, but 137 are under one euro and the median of the whole set is 0.11 €. Seven cards are enough to pass half the value of the whole set.

In other words: from a celebration set you almost always come away with beautiful cards worth little, and once in a while with a card worth as much as all the rest. If you are after a specific card, today the single costs far less than it did in mid September, and less than chasing it by opening packs.

How to read these prices. They are the lowest Near Mint listings, collected on CardTrader on 7 October 2026, compared with the measurement of 18 September 2026. The market for a freshly released set moves fast: the first week is told in is 30th Celebration worth buying now and in prices one week after release. We re-measure this page after 6 November, once every product in the set is out.

How to track 30th Celebration prices

The fast way is not to do it by hand. On DarkDex you add cards to your collection and the value updates itself with market prices, card by card, in the right language and condition.

If you want to see how a freshly released set moves, the most useful case is Pitch Black: we followed it from release day and a month later, out of ten cards, exactly one had gone up. 30th Celebration is doing the same.

Create your free DarkDex account and keep track of what your 30th Celebration collection is worth.