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Reverse Holo

Also written: Reverse · Rev holo · Reverse foil

A Pokémon card with the foil applied everywhere except the artwork window — the inverse of a holo rare.

CoatingThe card reflects light differently

A reverse holo is a Pokémon card printed with the foil layer on everything *except* the artwork — the card frame, the text box, the background behind the attacks. The picture itself stays matte. It is the exact inverse of a holo rare, which is where the name comes from, and once you have seen the two side by side you will never mistake them again.

How to spot one

• Tilt it under one light. The shimmer runs behind the text, and the picture is the one part that does not move.
• The rarity symbol in the bottom corner is unchanged from the normal version. A reverse holo of a common is still a common.
• The card number is the same as the non-reverse version. It is the same card in the checklist, printed differently.

The thing most people get wrong

A reverse holo is a finish, not a rarity. Nearly every card in a modern set exists in a reverse-holo version at whatever rarity it already had — commons, uncommons and rares alike — and packs are built with a slot dedicated to them. So "I pulled a reverse holo" tells you about the printing, not about the value. The card is worth what that card is worth, plus a modest premium for the finish.

Where the premium becomes real is set completion. Building a full master set — see rainbow — means owning the reverse of every card as well as the normal one, which doubles the checklist and makes the reverse of an unpopular common surprisingly annoying to find.

Patterned reverses

Some sets print the reverse foil with a pattern worked into it rather than a plain sheen — a repeated icon across the surface, a glittering cosmos texture, a stamped motif. These patterned reverses are collected as their own thing, separately from the plain reverse of the same card, so it is worth checking what the foil is actually doing before you file one as ordinary.

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