Pokémon
Cosmos Holo Pokémon Cards: Every Era, Priced
Tilt a holo and look at the shine. If it breaks into a field of dots and circles of different sizes, that is cosmos holo — often called galaxy holo. It is one pattern with two completely different lives: for about a decade it was the standard foil on holo rares, and since then it has mostly been kept for promotional cards that come in tins, boxes and blisters rather than booster packs.
That split is the useful part, because it changes what a cosmos card is worth. Below is each era, the cards that represent it, and what they sold for. Prices are PriceCharting sold-price figures in US dollars, ungraded unless we say otherwise, read on September 28, 2026; the earlier figures are points on each card’s PriceCharting price history.
Era 1: the standard holo (2000 to 2011)
The first English holos used a starburst pattern. Base Set 2, released February 24, 2000, was the first English set to use cosmos instead, and from then on it was the default holo pattern until the Black & White series replaced it with a striped pattern in April 2011. In this era, cosmos is not a variant — it is simply what a holo rare looks like.
- Base Set 2 Charizard (holo rare) — $305.00. It was $313.00 in December 2020, fell to $121.00 by December 2023, and was $204.97 in December 2025. PriceCharting’s census shows 70 PSA 10s against 1,391 PSA 9s.
- Neo Genesis Lugia (holo rare, December 2000) — $389.74. It was $203.39 in January 2021, $101.68 a year later, and $202.65 in January 2026.
Worth noticing: both of these fell by roughly half after early 2021 and took years to come back. Old does not mean only up.
Era 2: a promo pattern (2011 onward)
Once cosmos stopped being the default, it became one of the patterns used for promotional versions of cards — often a card that is not a holo in its own set, given a cosmos foil for one product. Black & White did it straight away, with cosmos versions of Snivy, Tepig and Oshawott that came only in boxes named after each of them. And the habit actually started earlier: in EX Unseen Forces (August 2005), Lugia is a plain rare in packs, but a cosmos holo version came only in the Silvery Ocean theme deck. That Lugia is $71.28 now; it was $13.61 in October 2024.
Some cosmos promos from the XY era:
- Legendary Treasures Charizard (November 2013) — cosmos version only in the Mega Charizard Collection and Mega Charizard Box. $91.43; it was $26.80 in August 2023, $16.11 in August 2024 and $22.50 in August 2025.
- XY Pikachu (February 2014) — a common in its set; the cosmos version was a promo tied to the theatrical release of The LEGO Movie. $16.06 raw. It dipped to $4.01 in August 2025. In a PSA 10 it is $1,399.00, up from $149.99 in July 2024.
- Ancient Origins Gyarados (August 2015) — cosmos version only in the Mega Gyarados Collection. $77.50; it was $19.99 in November 2024 and $23.99 in November 2025.
- BREAKthrough Gengar (November 2015) — cosmos version only in the Pokémon Champions tins. $40.58; it was $7.99 in June 2024 and $6.50 in June 2025.
Era 3: tins, boxes and warehouse bundles (Sword & Shield and Scarlet & Violet)
The pattern kept its promo job and picked up a new one: cosmos reverse holos in multi-tin bundles, some sold only through one retailer.
- Rebel Clash Magikarp — a common in its set; a cosmos reverse holo version came only in the Kanto Friends Mini Tin 5-Pack. $120.00. (Its price history only starts in August 2026, so we will not call a trend.)
- Brilliant Stars Mewtwo — a plain rare in packs; the cosmos version came only in the Mew V Box. $64.70; it was $7.00 in January 2025 and $40.00 in January 2026.
- 151 Pikachu (English 151, September 22, 2023) — cosmos reverse holo from a Costco-only 151 mini tin 5-pack. $5.00; it was $5.60 in December 2024 and $2.01 in December 2025. The same set also put cosmos Basic Energy cards in its booster packs.
- 151 Gengar — cosmos version from a Sam’s Club 4 mini tin bundle. $27.27; it was $8.63 in December 2025.
- Prismatic Evolutions Umbreon (January 17, 2025) — cosmos version, with the other Eeveelutions, from a Costco-only 8-tin bundle. $17.46; it was $8.00 in October 2025.
So how have cosmos prices moved?
Every one of the eleven cards above that has an earlier price to compare against was higher on September 28, 2026 than at its most recent comparison point, eight to fifteen months before — six of them by three times or more. Take that for what it is: eleven cards we chose, not an index of every cosmos card ever printed, and one strong year. The same list also shows the other side — the Base Set 2 Charizard and the Neo Genesis Lugia both spent years well below their 2021 prices, and the 151 Pikachu fell by more than half before coming back.
What the eras do tell you is where the value sits. In era 1, a cosmos card is priced like any holo from its set — it is the Pokémon and the condition that matter. In eras 2 and 3, a cosmos card is a different card from the one in booster packs, and it is only as scarce as the one product it came in. A cosmos promo can sit at a few dollars, like the 151 Pikachu, or reach nearly a hundred, like the Legendary Treasures Charizard — so the product it came from is the first thing to look up.
How to tell what you have
- Confirm the pattern. Dots and circles of different sizes is cosmos. Straight stripes, a starburst or a plain sheen are other patterns.
- Check whether the card is normally a holo. Look the card number up in its set list. If the pack version is a plain rare or a common, your cosmos copy came from a specific product — and that product is what you are pricing.
- Price the cosmos version, not the card. Price guides list cosmos versions separately. Using the pack version’s price will be wrong in one direction or the other.
- Check how many sales the price is built on. Several of these cards have only recently started being tracked, and a short history is not a trend.
For which reverse holo commons carry real money, see common reverse holos worth money; for how foil patterns fit Pokémon’s rarity system, see how Pokémon card rarities work.
What this looks like on Waffles
Every Pokémon pack we sell is four real singles we physically hold, and the card values we show carry the date they were last set — so you can check any card against a price guide yourself. See what is in the Pokémon packs right now and the published odds.