How to Start Collecting Pokémon Cards: What to Collect, and in Which Language

Pick what you collect

Pick one theme with a finish line you can see. Our catalog alone holds over 50,000 different cards, so "everything" never ends.

One Pokémon

Every card of one Pokémon, across sets and eras. Pick one language too, or the list never stops growing. Pikachu: 209 cards in English and the other European languages, 349 in Japanese, 94 in Simplified Chinese. Every Pikachu card

One generation

One card of every Pokémon from one generation of the games, like the original 151. That fills a binder of 17 nine-pocket pages. The original 151 appear on 4,666 cards in English and the other European languages, so you can pick the art you like for each one. Browse Pokémon

One set

A fixed card list, so you always know what is missing. Sets differ a lot in what they cost to finish. Darkness Ablaze: 201 cards. Browse sets

One illustrator

Every card drawn by one artist, if you collect for the art more than for the Pokémon. Mitsuhiro Arita, who drew the Base Set Charizard: 730 cards across 126 sets. Mitsuhiro Arita's cards

Something in the picture

Cards that share a mood, a colour, or a Pokémon hiding in the background. Good if you enjoy browsing more than finishing: sad cards, orange cards, Pikachu in the background.

Before your first purchase

• Decide what "done" means. One copy of every card? Only Near Mint? Reverse holos too? A set with every reverse holo, called a master set, has many more cards to find.
• Buy the expensive cards last. Start with the cheap ones, and keep the big purchases for when you know you are sticking with the theme.
• Buy singles for the cards you need. Packs are a lottery: to get one specific card, buy that card.

Pick your language

Choose by what matters most to you. English sells most easily, cards printed in Japan look best, and Chinese prints cost the least for that print quality.

Same artwork, four prints, four prices: the Surging Sparks Pikachu ex and its Japanese and Chinese prints, at the cheapest Near Mint copy of each on Cardmarket.

Choose by what you care about

• Reading the card: your own language, or English. You can read every attack and ability.
• Selling later: English, the easiest language to sell anywhere, because the United States market trades English cards.
• The best print: Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Thai or Indonesian, printed in Japan in the same factory as Japanese cards.¹
• The best print, and selling later: Japanese. Printed in Japan, and the game comes from Japan, so these cards have buyers there as well as abroad.
• A good print for less: Simplified Chinese, a median 0.34× the Japanese price.
• Playing in tournaments: English, or your country's language. Big official events in Europe allow English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish; Japanese is allowed in no listed zone. Local tournaments and leagues set their own rules.²

What the same card costs in each language

Cheapest copy for sale, Near Mint or better, for cards worth €50 or more. Cheap cards cost about the same in every language, so the language mostly matters for the cards you chase.

"0.80×" means the cheapest copy costs 80% of the English or Japanese one. "Copies to choose from" is how many copies a typical card has for sale, on the listings we record (at most 50 per card and language): more choice when you buy. It says nothing about how fast a card sells. Korean and Traditional Chinese are not recorded weekly: their figure is from September 2026. The French against English detail is in our dedicated guide.

The languages one by one

• English: the easiest to sell anywhere, because the United States market trades English cards. Official tournaments outside Japan accept it.
• French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese: the same sets and card numbers as English, in your own words. Prices differ more than you would expect: Italian asks a median 0.63× the English price on cards worth €50 or more.
• Japanese: printed in Japan. The texture is what collectors notice first, then sharper print and better centring. New sets come out in Japan first, but the cards are not allowed at the big official events outside Japan.
• Traditional Chinese, Thai, Indonesian: printed in the same factory as Japanese cards.¹ Thai and Indonesian are hard to find in Europe: we count 329 Thai and 211 Indonesian listings out of 4,320,667 we record on Cardmarket.
• Simplified Chinese: made for mainland China since 2022, with its own sets. Collectors describe the print as Japanese quality, though we found no official word on where it is printed. Fakes exist, so buy from sellers with a long sales history.
• Korean: printed in Korea, and sold on the same Cardmarket page as the Japanese card, usually for less.

Know the condition you pay for

Near Mint is the default on Cardmarket. Mint costs a lot more, for a difference you will rarely see in a binder.

• +140%: Mint over Near Mint, English cards (median)
• +87.7%: Mint over Near Mint, French cards (median)

Every condition and what it costs

Store them

Sleeve every card before it goes into a binder or a top loader. Plan your binder pages before you buy, so you always know which slots are still empty.

Our guide to organizing a binder counts the pages a set needs.

Plan a binder, free and without an account

Keep track of what you own

The free Manakodex app scans a card and adds it to your collection, with today's price in its own language and condition.

Get the free app on iPhone

On Android, the install goes through the home page.