{ "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/are-black-star-promos-worth-anything", "slug": "are-black-star-promos-worth-anything", "title": "Are Pokemon Black Star Promos Worth Anything?", "summary": "Across 1,347 English Black Star Promos in ten families, the median asks $8.30 and 98 cards hold 57.8% of the $45,730.41 the whole run is worth.", "section": "Quant research", "published": "2026-09-23", "readMinutes": 11, "publisher": "moonstone", "findings": [ { "value": "$8.30", "measures": "median Black Star Promo ask", "basis": "1,307 priced cards across ten families" }, { "value": "$45,730.41", "measures": "summed ask, the whole run", "basis": "a mean of $34.99 against that $8.30 median" }, { "value": "57.8%", "measures": "of the value held by 98 cards", "basis": "7.5% of the priced checklist" }, { "value": "1.4% to 48.0%", "measures": "median gem rate, worst family to best", "basis": "DP promos against MEP promos" } ], "tables": [ { "title": "The ten English Black Star Promo families, asks on September 23, 2026", "columns": [ "Family", "Cards", "Priced", "Summed ask", "Median ask", "At $100 or more", "Under $1", "Dearest card" ], "rows": [ { "Family": "[Wizards](/research/set-screen/wizards%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards": "53", "Priced": "51", "Summed ask": "$6,338.89", "Median ask": "$44.27", "At $100 or more": "9", "Under $1": "0", "Dearest card": "[Lucky Stadium](/card/basep-41) $1,700.00" }, { "Family": "[Nintendo](/research/set-screen/nintendo%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards": "40", "Priced": "34", "Summed ask": "$4,933.25", "Median ask": "$72.05", "At $100 or more": "14", "Under $1": "0", "Dearest card": "[Mudkip](/card/np-5) $1,500.00" }, { "Family": "[DP](/set/diamond%20and%20pearl%20promos)", "Cards": "56", "Priced": "52", "Summed ask": "$3,596.32", "Median ask": "$42.94", "At $100 or more": "10", "Under $1": "0", "Dearest card": "[Rayquaza C](/card/dpp-DP47) $471.25" }, { "Family": "[HGSS](/research/set-screen/hgss%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards": "25", "Priced": "24", "Summed ask": "$1,205.31", "Median ask": "$38.47", "At $100 or more": "1", "Under $1": "0", "Dearest card": "[Lugia](/card/hgssp-HGSS02) $233.53" }, { "Family": "[BW](/set/black%20and%20white%20promos)", "Cards": "101", "Priced": "96", "Summed ask": "$5,431.71", "Median ask": "$20.94", "At $100 or more": "12", "Under $1": "0", "Dearest card": "[Eevee](/card/bwp-BW97) $800.00" }, { "Family": "[XY](/set/xy%20promos)", "Cards": "216", "Priced": "210", "Summed ask": "$9,304.82", "Median ask": "$19.28", "At $100 or more": "22", "Under $1": "2", "Dearest card": "[Pikachu EX](/card/xyp-XY124) $501.32" }, { "Family": "[SM](/set/sm%20promos)", "Cards": "248", "Priced": "246", "Summed ask": "$6,544.68", "Median ask": "$9.80", "At $100 or more": "18", "Under $1": "16", "Dearest card": "[Mewtwo & Mew GX](/card/smp-SM191) $387.37" }, { "Family": "[SWSH](/research/set-screen/swsh%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards": "302", "Priced": "302", "Summed ask": "$4,408.67", "Median ask": "$3.36", "At $100 or more": "8", "Under $1": "51", "Dearest card": "[Special Delivery Bidoof](/card/swshp-SWSH177) $558.05" }, { "Family": "[SVP](/research/set-screen/svp%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards": "226", "Priced": "214", "Summed ask": "$3,356.48", "Median ask": "$2.27", "At $100 or more": "4", "Under $1": "68", "Dearest card": "[Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat](/card/svp-085) $1,066.19" }, { "Family": "[MEP](/research/set-screen/mep%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards": "80", "Priced": "78", "Summed ask": "$610.28", "Median ask": "$5.61", "At $100 or more": "0", "Under $1": "19", "Dearest card": "[Haunter](/card/mep-027) $48.34" }, { "Family": "All ten", "Cards": "1,347", "Priced": "1,307", "Summed ask": "$45,730.41", "Median ask": "$8.30", "At $100 or more": "98", "Under $1": "156", "Dearest card": "[Lucky Stadium](/card/basep-41) $1,700.00" } ] }, { "title": "Every priced Black Star Promo by ask band. The bands are exhaustive and sum to 1,307 cards and $45,730.41", "columns": [ "Ask band", "Cards", "Share of cards", "Summed ask", "Share of value" ], "rows": [ { "Ask band": "Under $1", "Cards": "156", "Share of cards": "11.9%", "Summed ask": "$98.02", "Share of value": "0.2%" }, { "Ask band": "$1 to $4.99", "Cards": "350", "Share of cards": "26.8%", "Summed ask": "$937.02", "Share of value": "2.0%" }, { "Ask band": "$5 to $9.99", "Cards": "203", "Share of cards": "15.5%", "Summed ask": "$1,447.69", "Share of value": "3.2%" }, { "Ask band": "$10 to $24.99", "Cards": "253", "Share of cards": "19.4%", "Summed ask": "$4,086.88", "Share of value": "8.9%" }, { "Ask band": "$25 to $99.99", "Cards": "247", "Share of cards": "18.9%", "Summed ask": "$12,718.82", "Share of value": "27.8%" }, { "Ask band": "$100 to $499.99", "Cards": "89", "Share of cards": "6.8%", "Summed ask": "$17,939.89", "Share of value": "39.2%" }, { "Ask band": "$500 or more", "Cards": "9", "Share of cards": "0.7%", "Summed ask": "$8,502.09", "Share of value": "18.6%" } ] }, { "title": "Every Black Star Promo asking $500 or more on September 23, 2026. Asks are listings; PSA medians are sold prices", "columns": [ "Card", "Family", "Ask", "PSA 10 sold", "PSA 9 sold" ], "rows": [ { "Card": "[Lucky Stadium](/card/basep-41)", "Family": "Wizards", "Ask": "$1,700.00", "PSA 10 sold": "$7,150.00 (n=21)", "PSA 9 sold": "$2,655.95 (n=22)" }, { "Card": "[Mudkip](/card/np-5)", "Family": "Nintendo", "Ask": "$1,500.00", "PSA 10 sold": "$1,997.50 (n=11), withdrawn as stale", "PSA 9 sold": "$3,500.00 (n=3)" }, { "Card": "[Pokémon Center](/card/basep-40)", "Family": "Wizards", "Ask": "$1,199.00", "PSA 10 sold": "not recorded", "PSA 9 sold": "$1,900.00 (n=26)" }, { "Card": "[Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat](/card/svp-085)", "Family": "SVP", "Ask": "$1,066.19", "PSA 10 sold": "$2,550.00 (n=722)", "PSA 9 sold": "$915.00 (n=569)" }, { "Card": "[Eevee](/card/bwp-BW97)", "Family": "BW", "Ask": "$800.00", "PSA 10 sold": "not recorded", "PSA 9 sold": "not recorded" }, { "Card": "[Paradise Resort](/card/svp-150)", "Family": "SVP", "Ask": "$597.50", "PSA 10 sold": "$1,050.00 (n=8)", "PSA 9 sold": "$36.00 (n=27), withdrawn as stale" }, { "Card": "[Rayquaza ex](/card/np-39)", "Family": "Nintendo", "Ask": "$580.03", "PSA 10 sold": "not recorded", "PSA 9 sold": "$7,600.00 (n=30)" }, { "Card": "[Special Delivery Bidoof](/card/swshp-SWSH177)", "Family": "SWSH", "Ask": "$558.05", "PSA 10 sold": "$3,150.00 (n=35)", "PSA 9 sold": "$618.88 (n=70)" }, { "Card": "[Pikachu EX](/card/xyp-XY124)", "Family": "XY", "Ask": "$501.32", "PSA 10 sold": "not recorded", "PSA 9 sold": "$5,150.00 (n=42)" } ] }, { "title": "Grading by family. Gem rates are medians over the cards whose registry row passes the trustworthiness check; a quotable PSA 10 sale means ten or more recorded sales and a registry line that survives the collision test", "columns": [ "Family", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate", "Median gem rate", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale", "Median PSA 10 over ask" ], "rows": [ { "Family": "[Wizards](/research/set-screen/wizards%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "50", "Median gem rate": "20.4%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "37", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "15.92x" }, { "Family": "[Nintendo](/research/set-screen/nintendo%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "18", "Median gem rate": "7.8%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "5", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "8.91x" }, { "Family": "[DP](/set/diamond%20and%20pearl%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "40", "Median gem rate": "1.4%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "0", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "no quotable card" }, { "Family": "[HGSS](/research/set-screen/hgss%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "11", "Median gem rate": "2.1%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "0", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "no quotable card" }, { "Family": "[BW](/set/black%20and%20white%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "75", "Median gem rate": "4.1%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "0", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "no quotable card" }, { "Family": "[XY](/set/xy%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "149", "Median gem rate": "4.0%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "14", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "44.14x" }, { "Family": "[SM](/set/sm%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "227", "Median gem rate": "14.5%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "55", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "19.71x" }, { "Family": "[SWSH](/research/set-screen/swsh%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "293", "Median gem rate": "29.8%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "73", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "19.37x" }, { "Family": "[SVP](/research/set-screen/svp%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "204", "Median gem rate": "31.4%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "67", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "17.45x" }, { "Family": "[MEP](/research/set-screen/mep%20black%20star%20promos)", "Cards with a trustworthy gem rate": "66", "Median gem rate": "48.0%", "Cards with a quotable PSA 10 sale": "33", "Median PSA 10 over ask": "16.35x" } ] } ], "charts": [], "sections": [ "Ten families, one label", "The shape, not the top ten", "Where the money actually is", "The grading gradient, and the hole in the middle of it", "What this cannot show", "What would overturn this" ], "method": [ "Population. Every catalog row whose `set_name` is one of the ten English Black Star Promo families: Wizards, Nintendo, DP, HGSS, BW, XY, SM, SWSH, SVP and MEP. 1,347 distinct products after deduplicating the 63,555-row catalog on `tcg_id`, which collapses 1,212 rows overall. No price floor, no top-N window, no rarity filter. Other English promo sets in the catalog (Alternate Art Promos, Promos-A, Miscellaneous Promos) are not Black Star Promo families and are excluded. Prices. `price_history` on day 20719, 2026-09-23, 52,378 priced products; these are ASKS, the daily dump's market figure for the canonical printing rather than the dearest one, never sales. 1,307 of the 1,347 carry one; the 40 without are excluded from every sum, median and share, and the counts are printed so the reader can see the exclusion rather than infer it. The band table is exhaustive over those 1,307 and its five columns sum to 1,307 cards and $45,730.41. Graded. `graded_snapshots`, latest day per card key and grade, read across the catalog-id and TCGplayer-id keyspaces and resolved by taking the fresher row. These are SOLD medians and each is printed with its sample size. Stale-row rule, applied across this whole batch: after the fresher-keyspace read, any median dated before day 20695 (2026-08-30, the start of the current daily tape) is dropped, because the graded feed rotates roughly a seventh of the catalog a day and an older row is a reading from a different week. It removed two PSA 10 medians (one Nintendo, one SVP) and five PSA 9 medians (one each in DP, HGSS, BW, SVP and MEP) out of the 1,347 cards, and every count in the grading table is after that removal. Collision test, run on every graded row used in this study: several products can share one PSA registry line, so a sold count at a grade is compared against the registry count at that grade whenever the registry row passes the trustworthiness check, and a row recording more than two sales per graded copy is withheld. One sale per copy is not a ceiling, because a slab can be sold more than once, so this is a declared threshold and not an impossibility; the stricter one-sale-per-copy bar is counted beside it below. It withholds 10 of the 294 promo PSA 10 medians that clear ten sales: two Wizards, three SM, three MEP, one SWSH and one BW, leaving 284. Nine of the ten fail on the ratio; the tenth, basep-27 Pikachu, sits on a registry line recording zero tens, which is a missing denominator rather than a ratio above the bar, and is withheld on the same reasoning. Of the 1,347 cards, 620 carry both a graded row and a registry row the check accepts and are therefore testable, and 67 carry a graded row on an untestable registry row; the untestable ones are not withheld and that asymmetry is stated rather than hidden. Sensitivity: the stricter one-sale-per-copy bar withholds two further gated PSA 10 rows, basep-21 Moltres at 1.25 sales per copy and mep-054 Sobble at 1.64, taking the Wizards column from 37 cards at 15.92x to 36 at 17.39x and the ten-family gated total from 284 to 282, with the 19.37x median across all ten unchanged. It also withholds four further PSA 9 rows, none of which is printed anywhere in this study. Every ranking, count and multiple in the grading table requires ten or more recorded sales; `Median PSA 10 over ask` is the median of the per-card ratio of a gated PSA 10 median to that card's day-20719 ask, never a ratio of sums. Registry and gem rates. `population_snapshots`, latest day per key, read across both keyspaces. A gem rate is used only when the row passes `gemRateIsTrustworthy()`, which rejects a recorded zero tens on a line of 100 or more, or on a line that also records PSA 9s or PSA 10 sales, because rows written before 2026-09-17 carry a parse artifact of exactly that shape. The card counts in the gem column are the cards that passed, and they are printed rather than hidden. No registry absolute is published as a slab count: several products share one line and a per-family sum would double count. Set index. `sethist2:` under our ten catalog names returns nothing, but the series exist under the PROVIDER's set names and all ten render at `/set/`: `wotc promo`, `nintendo promos`, `diamond and pearl promos`, `hgss promos`, `black and white promos`, `xy promos`, `sm promos`, `swsh: sword & shield promo cards`, `sv: scarlet & violet promo cards` and `me: mega evolution promo`. Each was fetched on 2026-09-23; nine of the ten render the family's own cards and `me: mega evolution promo` renders its index total with no card list at all. Each counts more priced products than this study does (69, 75, 60, 31, 128, 241, 312, 341, 283 and 130 against our 51, 34, 52, 24, 96, 210, 246, 302, 214 and 78), so their `Full Set` totals are higher and are not the figures printed here. A lookup on our catalog spelling returns nothing and must not be read as an absent series. Every family total in this study is a sum over the day-20719 card tape. Links. Every page linked from this study was fetched on 2026-09-23 and its title read back to confirm it is the family the sentence means. Four families, DP, BW, XY and SM, have no correct set screen, because `foldSetName()` in src/server/set-screen.ts strips the leading era token and five Black Star Promo names collapse to one key that SWSH wins on card count; those four are linked to their `/set/` pages instead and each was fetched and its card list checked against the family. Median convention: upper-middle on even samples." ], "terms": "Figures are moonstone's own recorded measurements, dated as published. Quote them with the population stated beside them. The article at `url` is the human form of this file." }