Reverse holo, holo and 1st edition
The same Pokémon, the same number, the same artwork, and yet three different prices. This is the difference.
Normal, reverse holo and holo
Most cards in a set exist in two variants that sit side by side in the packs.
- Normal — the card as intended: the artwork is neither glossy nor matt, the rest of the card is plain card stock.
- Reverse holo — exactly the other way round: the background shines, with a pattern across the whole card, and the artwork does not. Most packs contain one.
- Holo — only the artwork shines. This sits with the rarer cards of a set and is the classic "shiny card".
Quickest way to tell them apart: tilt the card under a lamp and see where the shine is. In the window with the Pokémon? Holo. Everywhere but there? Reverse holo. Nowhere? Normal.
Why that matters for the price
Because there are more of one than of the other. On an average card the reverse holo is a few times the price of the normal one, simply because each pack holds one reverse and the rest are normal. On sought-after cards the difference can run to double or more.
That is also why it goes wrong if you do not track it: you look your card up, see an amount, and that amount belongs to a different variant than the one in your hand.
1st edition and shadowless
This only applies to the oldest series, and there it is not a detail but the whole story.
The first print run of a set carried a small stamp to the left of the artwork: "Edition 1". Everything printed after that does not have it. There are far fewer of that first run, and the price difference with a later print can be enormous.
With the very first English set there is one more thing: the earliest cards have no drop shadow on the right of the artwork window. Those are called shadowless and sit between 1st edition and the regular print in terms of scarcity.
And all those other labels?
Modern sets have even more variants of the same card: a version with a different background texture, a cosmic or galaxy holo, a gold version. They all work the same as above: it is the same card with a different surface, and there are more or fewer of them. What each symbol means.
How to track it without going mad
In Cardtracker you pick which variant you have when you add it, and then we use the matching price. If you have two of the same card in different variants, they sit separately in your collection.