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October 6th - October 12th, 2025

Solosis Illustration Rare Spiking With Bubble Mew Hype 🫧, Yu Nagaba Pokemon Cards On The Rise Again 📈, Alto Mare Theater Pack Sells $4k 🍿, Deoxys VSTAR Could Takeoff 🚀

Note: sold listing links sometimes redirect to active listings after some time but should still be discoverable by searching for the listings manually.

📋 TLDR

📰 TCG News: Solosis Illustration Rare spikes to $60+ amid “Bubble Mew” artist hype and speculation, Pokemon Center online store launches in Germany, Chicago Field Museum shares first look at Pokemon Fossil Museum exhibit.

🏆 Card of the Week: Gardenia’s Vigor – A vibrant Trainer card that stands out for its full-scene composition and lush, floral palette.

🔢 Card Market Highlights: Chinese Mew Promo 003 reaches $12.3k sealed and $23.9k graded; Yu Nagaba Umbreon Black Label hits $2.25k; XY Phantom Forces ETB climbs to $8.3k; Alto Mare Half Deck sells for $4k.

😴 Potential Sleepers: Crown Zenith - Deoxys VSTAR #GG46

📰 TCG News

Note: Not all news may be directly TCG related

🔵 Solosis Illustration Rare Sees Unnatural Spike Following “Bubble Mew” Artist Hype

A surprising breakout this week came from Solosis (Illustration Rare, Black Bolt 118/086), which leapt from ~$10–12 into the $60–70 range before cooling into the $40s. Its artwork is by USGMEN, the same artist behind the famous “Bubble Mew,” and that connection has become a focal narrative driving collector interest.

While the card does enjoy that underlying appeal, growth at this rate is anything but natural, with many speculating that the spike is most likely the result of artificial market pumping rather than organic demand. Coincidentally, it also aligns with Solosis Community Day in Pokémon GO (October 12, 2025), which may have amplified attention around the name and added fuel to the hype.

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🔵 Pokemon Center online store launches in Germany

The Pokémon Company International has quietly launched a beta version of the Pokémon Center Germany online store, marking the first localized Pokémon Center website for the German market and possibly the first step toward a wider European rollout. While the site is live and accepting orders, its current functionality and product range are limited, and shipping is restricted to addresses within Germany. No formal announcement has been made by TPCi, leaving fans to speculate whether this signals an upcoming expansion of Pokémon Center operations across Europe. You can visit the store at pokemoncenter.com/en-de.

Source: Pokeguardian​

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🔵 Chicago Field Museum shares first look at Pokemon Fossil Museum exhibit team

The Field Museum has shared an early look at the scientists featured in the upcoming Pokémon Fossil Museum, opening May 22, 2026. The special exhibition blends Pokémon and paleontology, showcasing fossil Pokémon alongside real excavation tools, soundscapes, and displays featuring real-world researchers as illustrated guides.

Among the featured scientists are Akiko Shinya, Chief Fossil Preparator known for her work on SUE the T. rex and her favorite fossil Pokémon Shieldon; Arjan Mann, Assistant Curator of Early Tetrapods who studies ancient amphibians and favors Rampardos; and Jingmai O’Connor, Associate Curator of Fossil Reptiles whose research on early birds parallels Pokémon like Archeops. The exhibit promises to bridge science and fandom, offering a rare crossover between real prehistoric life and the imaginative world of Pokémon fossils.

Source: Chicago Field Museum​

🏆 Card of the Week

Gardenia’s Vigor - Japanese VStar Universe #243 / English Crown Zenith #GG61

There are many underrated Trainer cards out there and Gardenia’s Vigor is one of them! It's a bit different from the standard Trainer card which typically features a close up. I really like this card because not only does it put Gardenia in her natural habitat as a flower lover and grass type trainer but the greens and colors of the flowers really compliment Gardenia herself.

🔢 Card Market Highlights

📦 Sealed Product Market Highlights

🔵B&W Next Destinies booster box sells for $8.8k

​Listing​

The top chases from Next Destinies include Reshiram EX (PSA 10 pop of 7 valued around $3.4k), Kyurem EX (PSA 10 pop of 17 valued around $2.7k, and Cosmos Holo Moltres (PSA 10 pop of 1 so you can imagine price data is extremely limited although the last sale was around $2.3k). Needless to say in a graded context, the top chases are extremely exclusive besides the fact that this is a “modern vintage” set which are also exclusive themselves.

Booster boxes like this always see significant jumps with each subsequent sale. The last sale prior to this was at $7.1k in August, and another at $5.2k in May.

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🔵XY Phantom Forces ETB sells for $8.3k

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XY Phantom Forces has been getting a lot of attention across top chases and sealed products. The top chase getting the most attention thus far is Gengar EX #114 values close to $12k. XY Phantom Forces has grown almost $4k since Maybe about from about $9.5k to $13k. Likewise, the ETB saw a huge jump compared to the latest sale with a $4.5k sale in July and a $3.3k sale in June.

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🔵2025 Sealed Mew Chinese Promo 003 sells for $12.3k

Note: This is a presale order which is typically only allowed under certain circumstances but essentially it means that the buyer has paid but not received the item yet.

​Listing​

For context, In 2025, Pokémon China released an ultra-limited Mew ex promotional card labeled 003/SV-P in Simplified Chinese. Only 1,510 copies were printed, making it one of the rarest modern promos ever produced.

To qualify, Chinese players needed to complete at least 15 designated activities such as gym battles or tournament participation across three separate tournament venues by December 15, 2024. Those who met the criteria were entered into a lottery draw to win this card.

When this card first hit the market, the ungraded copy in its original envelope packaging, went for around $6-$8k. One additional interesting fact about this card is that the sealed copies contain a receipt indicating what number the card is out of 1510 which is as close to serialized cards as it gets in the Pokemon card world. The PSA 10 copy of this card is currently going for around $22k-$23k
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💎 Singles & Graded Cards Highlights

🔵 2025 Mew Chinese Promo 003 sells for $23.9k

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Because I was covering the sealed product I thought it would be interesting to do a touchpoint on how the graded copies are doing. There have been some insane sales like the Black Label 10 for $125k (although this sale was confirmed as having gone through by the seller, it wasn’t confirmed as having been paid via eBay’s product research tool).

Overall the PSA 10 price has nearly doubled since June when the graded copies began hitting the market at around $14k-$16k.

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🔵 BGS 10 Black Label Yu Nagaba Umbreon sells for $2.25k

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In the past couple months the Yu Nagaba set of PSA 10 Eevelutions has been experiencing a resurgence in popularity and is currently going for around $1.1k. Given the popularity of Umbreon, its one of the more popular Black Labels of the set and has had quite a bit of growth. It’s steadily climbed from about $970 in June to over $2k. Given the growing popularity of this set, $2k might still be a good price to get in at like the Pikachu Stamp promo where Black Labels went for around $1.6k around the same time frame and now have ballooned to close to $10k.
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🔵 PSA 10 Inferno X Mega Charizard X ex sells for $1.8k

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The ungraded copies of this card back have been going for around $500-$700. There’s been a couple outlier sales in a PSA 10 with one sale at about $3.5k although the true average seems to be around $2k and slowly coming down a bit more with recent sales. Prices for top chases usually come down a bit in anticipation of the English set releasing. However, with the wild popularity of Phantasmal Flames (which hasn’t even released yet) and Mega Evolutions (which came out at the end of September), we might start to see a change in this trend where prices for Japanese don’t come down much if at all and instead only see a very slight dip before coming back up again.

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🕰️ Vintage & Niche Market Highlights

🔵 2002 PSA 10 Japanese McDonalds Minimum booster pack sells for $3.25k

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In early 2002, McDonald’s Japan released a promo “Minimum Pack” tied to Happy Meal purchases, each sealed pack containing six cards: at least one holo Pokémon, one holo Energy, two non-holo Pokémon, and two non-holo Energy (plus damage counters). The set spans 18 Pokémon (001–018) and several basic Energy cards. The top chase holos are Squirtle #007 (which has really blown up to around $4k in a PSA 10), Charmander #004 and Pikachu #010 (both close to $2k in a PSA 10), Slowpoke #014, and Larvitar #018.
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🔵 Alto Mare Limited Theater VS Pack Half Deck sells for $4k

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Pokémon the Movie: Pokémon Heroes – Latios & Latias, built around Alto Mare and heavily focused on Latios and Latias among other locale-relevant Pokémon. This deck was exclusive to Japan. The most sought-after cards are the holo Alto Mare’s Latias #011 and Latios #012, plus other rarer Alto Mare foils like Alto Mare’s Xatu and Alto Mare’s Aerodactyl. These older packs are really hard to find so price data is pretty limited. The last sale I could find before this one was at $1.3k at the end of April.

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🔵 Unlimited Base Set booster box sells for $20k

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Surprisingly prices have stayed pretty consistent for the Unlimited Base Set around $20k-$23k since April 2025. Before that it was in the range of about $10k-$17k in the latter half of 2024. Setting aside the fact that this is still insane growth, one reason that we might not be seeing continued growth at the same pace month over month is that Unlimited Base Set is at the far end of the vintage spectrum given that it was basically the first set. For this reason it might be considered to be “realized” as a set while attention grows more on other vintage sets that came after it.

😴 Potential Sleepers

Crown Zenith - Deoxys VSTAR #GG46

PSA 10 - 4249 pop / 7597 total - $190 average

Ungraded - $30 average for near mint condition

Crown Zenith was still considered to be an underrated set leading up to the market boom in 2025. In particular two cards that really started to pop off in July are the Mewtwo and Charizard VSTAR cards with complementing artwork depicting their showdown. I picked out this Deoxys card because I still think there are a lot of sleepers in Crown Zenith.

Sub $200 in a PSA 10 doesn’t exactly make it a sleeper but Deoxys is a very popular Pokemon depicted in a similar art style (which as a matter of personal opinion I think is very cool) and I think it still has a lot of room to move up. Current PSA 10 prices still seem pretty stable around the $190 mark.

📚 Educational Commentary – Collector’s Corner

Modern or vintage, which should you invest in?

Vintage cards offer proven history, scarcity, and emotional weight that continues to drive value decades later. Their supply is limited, and the nostalgia tied to classic sets like Base or Neo makes them deeply meaningful to collectors. Prices for top-tier vintage cards tend to hold up well during market downturns, providing stability for long-term investors. On the other hand, entry costs are getting higher and higher and depending on the card it may take longer to find buyers when you want to sell. Many mid-tier vintage cards also stagnate if they lack strong historical appeal although that seems to be less of an issue with the current market in that very few cards are considered mid-tier now in terms of desirability.

🫐 Berries For Thought

💭 How do you feel about reprints of vintage cards like Celebrations?

💭 Do you prefer vintage or modern and why?

Share your thoughts on the above questions by replying to this email! (I read all of them 🙂)