Chinese Pokémon Cards, PSA 10: What They Are and How Many Exist

Quick answer

CardSpicy documents 60 Simplified Chinese-exclusive Pokémon cards as of September 2026. The Chinese-exclusive branch of its PSA 10 catalogue runs from $34.20 to $42,703.82, with a median of $204.28, and every one of them is listed with the code printed on the card.

Simplified Chinese Pokémon cards are the mainland-China printing of the Pokémon TCG, published in Simplified Chinese characters under set codes that always end in the letter C. Forty-two cards have been printed exclusively in this language as of September 2026, across 20 set lines, and the Chinese-exclusive branch of our PSA 10 catalogue runs from $66.97 to $42,703.82 with a median of $204.28.

What “Simplified Chinese” means on a Pokémon card

Simplified Chinese product launched in mainland China in 2022, and it is imported and run by Pokémon Shanghai Toy Limited — a wholly owned subsidiary of The Pokémon Company, registered in Shanghai in 2020, not a licensee. That structure is worth knowing for one practical reason: the line is not a translation. It has its own set codes, its own checklists and, in places, its own artwork.

The card list is the first thing new collectors get wrong. Every Simplified Chinese set except the 30th Anniversary release carries a different card list from the Japanese and English printings, which means most cards in this language exist in one language only and cannot be compared card-for-card against an English price.

The naming is the second. “Chinese card” describes three different products, and they do not behave alike: artwork printed only in this language, artwork shared with other languages but also printed here, and the Japanese, English and other printings we list for comparison.

How many Simplified Chinese-exclusive cards exist

Forty-two, as of September 2026, spanning 20 set lines released between 2023 and 2026. That is a documented count rather than a closed official checklist, and it is deliberately conservative: a card comes off the list if its artwork is later printed in another language, so several prominent Chinese cards that trade in four figures are not on it. The full list of 42, with the code printed on each card, sits alongside it.

The growth is the more useful number. Two cards in 2023, four in 2024, then twenty-six in 2025 alone, and ten more so far in 2026. Simplified Chinese printing began in 2022 and commissioned exclusive artwork did not arrive in volume until the format matured — which is why there is no long back catalogue of Chinese-exclusive cards to chase, and why the list is heavily weighted to the last two years.

Two product families carry most of it. The six Gem Pack volumes account for 19 of the 42 cards, more than the next three set lines combined; Collect 151 contributes four, all of them Pikachu Art Rares drawn by Oswaldo KATO. By rarity the list is overwhelmingly illustration-driven: 32 of the 42 are Illustration Rares or Special Art Rares, six are gold or Hyper Rare treatments, and exactly one is a promo. Our rules for what counts as a card, and what is deliberately left out, are written out in how we count and rank Chinese Pokémon cards.

The three branches, in numbers

Every card we sell is graded PSA 10 (Gem Mint), and each listing is sorted into one of the three branches below. The figures are listed prices from our own catalogue on 30 September 2026 — they are not an appraisal.

The spread inside the exclusive branch is the single most misunderstood thing about it. An accessible exclusive artwork and a distribution-capped promo are both “exclusive”, and they are not the same purchase. The cap is what separates them, so read the distribution method before you read the price.

And the same card, in two languages. The 30th Anniversary release is the one Simplified Chinese set printed from the same checklist as the Japanese and English printings, which makes it the only release where a card-for-card comparison is possible at all. Read off the printed card number, at ungraded market prices on 30 September 2026, the Simplified Chinese copy is the cheaper of the two on every row:

Ungraded PriceCharting market prices on 30 September 2026, matched on the printed card number and shown only where both printings have recorded sales. The 30th Anniversary release shares one checklist across languages; the two Collect 151 rows are the sealed booster box and a base-set card, because that set’s Art Rares are commissioned for Simplified Chinese and have no Japanese printing to compare against. A gap of 3.0× means the Japanese printing of the same card costs three times the Simplified Chinese one. Where to start on the Simplified Chinese price ladder picks it up from the cheaper end.

How to read a Simplified Chinese card code

Every Simplified Chinese set code ends in the letter C. A code without it belongs to a different language’s product, which is the first thing to check when a listing is ambiguous. The prefix names the set:

• CBB1C – CBB6C — Gem Pack Vol. 1 to Vol. 6, the all-foil mini sets, one code per volume
• 151C — Collect 151, released in four editions
• csv3C – csv10C — Scarlet & Violet era main sets, from Fearless Terastal to Chasing Glory Together
• cs3aC / cs3bC / cs5bC / cs5.5C — subsets and odd-numbered releases

Gem Pack works differently from a main set, because it is organised by Pokémon rather than by one running checklist. CBB2C 06 15/15 reads as: Gem Pack Vol. 2, group 06, treatment 15 of the fifteen in that group. The fraction alone identifies nothing — in Vol. 2, Eevee, Leafeon, Sylveon and Umbreon all print 15/15, so the group number has to be quoted with it. Main-set cards instead use a running position and a printed total, and a numerator higher than the total is not an error: it marks a secret rare sitting past the end of the numbered checklist. How to read a Simplified Chinese set code walks through every part of a code.

What is different from Japanese and English cards

The history is short. Japanese printing starts in 1996 and English in 1999; Simplified Chinese starts in 2022. Twenty-six years of the hobby’s grading history simply does not exist for this language, and the population of graded copies is correspondingly thin.

The security features are unique. Simplified Chinese holofoils from V-tier upward carry an embossed Pokémon logo bottom-left, and SR, SAR and UR cards add a lenticular logo bottom-right. No other language uses either. Their absence on a card that otherwise looks Chinese is a reason to stop and check, and it is one of the checks in how to verify a PSA card.

The price gap is structural. At the source, a Simplified Chinese booster box starts near $35 where a Japanese box regularly clears $100. When the 30th Anniversary set released in September 2026 the same day produced three numbers side by side: RMB 360 a box in Simplified Chinese, RMB 2,688 paid by a collector who broke a Japanese box early, and an English RGB Mew reported at $20,000 on day one. The gap narrows as the language matures. It is a young language’s pricing rather than a permanent feature of the hobby, which is why the case for a card has to be the card.

Where the discount stops. The gap above applies to artwork that exists in more than one language. It does not apply to the artwork that exists only here. The four Collect 151 Pikachu Art Rares, numbered 170/151 through 173/151 and commissioned as one four-part set from a single illustrator, are not priced against any Japanese or English card, because there is no other printing of that picture to buy instead. In PriceCharting’s record the 173/151 panel traded at a median of $751.54 across its last 30 ungraded sales — an exclusive illustration setting its own market rather than following one.

The ceiling looks like this. The most constrained card in the language is the Mew ex 003/SV-P lottery promo, which required fifteen qualifying activities at three or more official venues to earn one entry into a monthly draw. Its print run is documented at 1,510 copies, and it is the only confirmed print-run figure in the history of the language: The Pokémon Company and Pokémon Shanghai disclose no print runs for main sets. A PSA 10 copy sold for $50,000 in May 2026 with the graded population near 452.

What is in the catalogue right now

Forty-two Chinese-exclusive cards and six Chinese-branch cards are listed today, every one a PSA 10. The examples below span the range rather than the top of it — four figure-setting cards and four accessible ones.

• Mew ex 003/SV-P lottery promo — 1,510 copies, drawn from a membership lottery
• Collect 151 Pikachu Art Rare 172/151 and Pikachu Art Rare 171/151 — two of the four Oswaldo KATO Pikachu panels
• Collect 151 Pikachu Art Rare 173/151 and Pikachu Art Rare 170/151 — the other two panels
• Gem Pack Vol. 1 Captain Pikachu Art Rare CBB1C 07 09/09 — one of the four Vol. 1 exclusive artworks
• Gem Pack Vol. 2 Umbreon Art Rare CBB2C 06 15/15 — the far-right panel of HYOGONOSUKE’s four-card connected forest
• Fearless Terastal Arcanine SAR csv3C 155/130 — a secret rare numbered past its set total
• Gem Pack Vol. 2 Eevee Art Rare CBB2C 01 15/15 and Gem Pack Vol. 1 Sprigatito & Liko Art Rare CBB1C 01 09/09 — the accessible end of the same product line

The full catalogue is here: Chinese Exclusive PSA 10 cards, Chinese PSA 10 cards, and all PSA 10 graded cards. If a card you want is not showing, Find this Card for Me — the printed set and card code are all we need. CBB3C 02 07/07 identifies Meowth unambiguously — and we will confirm a price and a lead time before you commit.

What to check before you buy

Counterfeiting is more active in this language than in English or Japanese, and the counterfeits are good. In March 2026 CGC flagged a counterfeit Umbreon Gem Pack alternate art on several signals at once: missing eyelid line art, flat shading, a holofoil layer reflecting fewer bars than a genuine card, and no security stamp. No single check is sufficient on its own.

The demand side has noticed. In one 2025 brand survey, 31% of collectors said they doubted authenticity on resale platforms and 26% said they had cut spending because of it. Two habits answer most of that risk: buy graded copies whose certificate numbers you have looked up yourself, and treat any raw Chinese card from an unknown source as unverified until you have.

Frequently asked questions

Are Simplified Chinese Pokémon cards worth collecting?

It depends on the card rather than the language. The Chinese-exclusive branch of our catalogue runs from $66.97 to $42,703.82 with a median of $204.28 as of September 2026, and that spread is the point: an accessible exclusive artwork and the 1,510-copy Mew ex promo are both exclusive, and they do not behave the same way. Collect the artwork you want, and read the distribution method before treating any card as an investment.

How many Simplified Chinese-exclusive Pokémon cards are there?

Forty-two as of September 2026, across 20 set lines released between 2023 and 2026. The count grew from two cards in 2023 to four in 2024, then twenty-six in 2025, with ten more so far in 2026. It is a documented count rather than an official checklist: a card comes off the list if its artwork is later printed in another language.

How do I tell a Simplified Chinese card from a Japanese or English one?

Read the card text and the code. Simplified Chinese is written in simplified characters, Japanese uses kana alongside kanji, and every Simplified Chinese set code ends in the letter C — CBB1C through CBB6C for Gem Pack, 151C for Collect 151, and the csv and cs prefixes for the Scarlet & Violet era. Simplified Chinese holofoils from V-tier upward also carry an embossed Pokémon logo bottom-left, and SR, SAR and UR cards add a lenticular logo bottom-right, which no other language uses.

Do you sell raw Chinese Pokémon cards, or only graded ones?

Only graded, and only PSA 10 (Gem Mint). Every card in the Chinese Exclusive category is a single PSA 10 example, and 42 were listed at the time of writing. That is a deliberate limit rather than a gap: we do not trade raw cards and we do not list other grades, which is explained in why we only sell PSA 10.

What is the most expensive Simplified Chinese card?

The highest figure we can document is the Mew ex 003/SV-P lottery promo, listed at $42,703.82 in our catalogue as of September 2026. Its print run is documented at 1,510 copies and the graded population was near 452, which makes it the only card in the language with a confirmed print-run figure. The next tier down is the four Collect 151 Pikachu Art Rares, listed between $1,039.75 and $2,851.26.

Sources

Sources and further reading

1. CardSpicy — How many Simplified Chinese-exclusive Pokémon cards are there?, for the 42-card list, the set-line count and the year-by-year growth.
2. CardSpicy — How we count and rank Chinese Pokémon cards, for the inclusion test that decides what counts as exclusive.
3. CardSpicy — How to read a Simplified Chinese Pokémon set code, for the C-suffix rule, the prefix families and the Gem Pack group and treatment ladder.
4. CardSpicy — Chinese vs Japanese Pokémon cards, for the three-branch split and the security stamp.
5. CardSpicy — Why Simplified Chinese Pokémon cards are worth collecting right now, for the market figures, the 1,510-copy print run and the 30th Anniversary comparison.
6. CardSpicy — Chinese Exclusive PSA 10 catalogue, for every listed figure quoted above.
7. PSA — Cert Verification, psacard.com/cert, for the certificate-number lookup used to check a graded card.
8. PSA — PSA Security: the LightHouse label and the tamper-evident holder, for the label and holder features.

Figures quoted here are listed prices in our own catalogue on 30 September 2026, not appraisals, and they move. Counts of exclusive cards are our documented figures rather than an official checklist. Where a number decides a purchase, check it against the card and the label in front of you.

Related reading

• Why Simplified Chinese Pokémon cards are worth collecting right now
• Chinese vs Japanese Pokémon cards: what the three branches mean
• Every Simplified Chinese-exclusive card, with codes
• How to verify a PSA card is authentic
• Grading guide: how to read a PSA, BGS or CGC card
• Why we only sell PSA 10
• Every illustrator behind the Simplified Chinese cards
• Trading card glossary: the terms collectors actually use

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