Celebrations Umbreon Gold Star pop report: the frame did not do it

Published November 11, 2026 · Pop figures refresh with every site build; the current pull is October 23, 2026

Pokemon brought the Gold Star frame back twice in October 2021, gave both cards to the same illustrator, and sold them inside the same anniversary merchandise. One of the two comes back a Gem Mint 10 54.3 percent of the time. The other manages 5.14.

This page counts the one that gems: Umbreon Gold Star 17/17, English, from the Celebrations Classic Collection. Not the 2007 POP Series 5 card it replicates, and not the Japanese reprint of the same drawing. All three answer to the same name and none of them grades alike.

The Celebrations Umbreon Gold Star pop report starts at the 9

At the October 23, 2026 pull: 37,782 submissions, 20,516 tens, 15,168 nines, 1,756 eights, and 339 copies finishing at 7 or lower, which is 0.90 percent of everything ever mailed in. PSA added 1,036 more last period on a thirty day trend of +1%.

Almost nothing goes wrong on the way in. Across all 25 English rows in the Classic Collection, not one finishes more than 2.59 percent of its census at a 7 or lower. Whatever this card loses, it loses at the top of the ladder.

Which is where it parts company with its own subset. Of the copies finishing at a 9 or a 10, this one converts 57.49 percent into tens against the subset's 63.75, and only Team Magma's Groudon and Rocket's Admin convert worse, on censuses of 4,208 and 1,553. The Classic Collection Charizard, out of the same four card packs, converts 62.02.

Twenty seven Gold Stars, and not one of them did this

Before 2021 the Gold Star was a consistent thing. Pool every English Gold Star row from the EX Series and POP Series 5 carrying at least 200 grades and you get 27 cards, 65,414 submissions and 2,654 tens, a 4.06 percent gem rate. Best of the 27 is the Unseen Forces Raikou at 9.43 percent, worst is the Team Rocket Returns Torchic at 1.22. Four years of printing them, nothing over 10.

Then October 8, 2021 produced two at once. The Greninja Gold Star from the Celebrations Elite Trainer Box landed at 5.14 percent on 59,497 grades, which is the old program almost to the decimal. This Umbreon landed at 54.3 percent.

Both carry a Masakazu Fukuda credit on the card face. Each revives the EX Series layout, which runs foil across the whole card rather than confining it to the illustration window, and each shipped sealed in Celebrations product on the same day. Ten times apart.

That matters because the layout is the usual suspect, and it is the reading the Greninja page offered: a card with foil everywhere gives a press mark nowhere dull to land. Bulbapedia records this Umbreon reprint as Confetti Holofoil with etching similar to Full Art cards, so the foil is everywhere on the card that gems too. The frame is not what sets the rate.

The 2007 original arrives broken. This one does not.

POP Series 5 ran from March to September 2007 through Pokemon Organized Play, the last EX Series promotional set that program got. PSA has graded 871 English copies of its Umbreon and awarded 53 tens, 6.08 percent, with 64.52 percent of the census coming back at a 7 or lower.

One card is an anecdote, so check the other one in the same pack. Espeon Gold Star 16/17 reads 883 grades, 58 tens, 6.57 percent, 62.97 percent at a 7 or lower. The two ladders track rung by rung: 67 ones against 63, 146 nines against 156, 53 tens against 58. Two Pokemon, two illustrations, the same handful of copies at every grade.

So the 2007 print loses to damage, and fourteen years of binders and league bags covers that. The 2021 reprint does not lose to damage at all. It loses at the 9, and so does the Japanese version of the same drawing, printed the same year, which reads 32,320 grades at 89.06 percent with 1.23 percent at a 7 or lower. Between those two the whole gap is the 9 to 10 step, 57.49 percent against 91.15, and the one documented physical difference between them is packaging: four cards to a pack in English, single card packs in Japan.

Hold that loosely, because it fits the Umbreon and not the Greninja. That one also travelled sealed, and it still puts 17.26 percent of its census at a 7 or lower and converts 11.90 percent, worse than a card that spent 2007 getting shuffled. Something about that promo's production did it, and the 27 rows above say it was not the star frame.

Fukuda drew it for a fan club that made you earn it

The Japanese original is PLAY Promotional card 026/PLAY, handed out by the Daisuki Pokemon Fan Club between 2005 and 2006 to members who accumulated 70,000 points through meets and activities. Espeon cost 40,000. The window for earning points was short, which is why the English POP Series 5 release in 2007 was the first realistic shot most collectors in the West had at either one.

On the face: a Basic Darkness Pokemon, 70 HP, a Poke POWER called Dark Ray, and Feint Attack for a flat 30. The Umbreon is the shiny one, black against a red sky, which is the convention the whole Gold Star program was built on. The Celebrations print keeps the EX Series frame and the 2007 copyright line, adds the 25th anniversary Pikachu logo at the lower right of the artwork window, and drops the unique ID number the original carried.

The breakeven is 27 percent and the card runs at 54

PSA's Standard tier read $59.99 on psacard.com on November 11, 2026, insured to $1,000, estimated at 70 to 80 business days, with Value still paused. A raw copy is $68.00, the median of five Near Mint sales on TCGplayer over November 10 and 11, so a submission costs about $128 all in.

Run the whole census through the dated sold tape instead of the dream outcome. Dock 15 percent off every rung for marketplace fees and shipping a slab, weight each rung by how often this card produces it, and a submission returns $175.13 against $127.99 laid out, a 36.8 percent gain. Breakeven sits at a 27.04 percent gem rate against 54.3 percent lifetime and 49 percent on the trailing window, so there is real daylight.

Then look at where that money comes from. 78.8 percent of the expected return is the 10 alone, and deleting the Gem Mint column leaves $37.13 against a $128 cost. The 9 cleared $97.50 across 24 dated sales since October 28, so every nine costs about $45 after fees, and this card throws 40.15 percent nines.

The 9 is the whole decision

Nothing here is going to arrive scuffed, so skip the surface check a vintage holo needs and spend the time on the cut. Lay the copy on a white sheet and read the yellow border top against bottom, then left against right. This row is the argument for doing it that way: 0.90 percent damaged, and 15,168 copies that stopped one grade short anyway.

If the borders look even, the arithmetic above is honest and the odds are better than one in two. If they do not, buy a finished slab near $299 and skip the $45 lesson. How a gem rate gets built out of other people's mistakes explains why that census describes submitters rather than print runs, and every row quoted here sorts alongside the rest of the data in BetterPop's own gallery, next to the Evolving Skies Umbreon, which has the opposite problem.

Sources

• PSA population via the GemRate pull of October 23, 2026; every population figure above refreshes with each site build. The 27 row Gold Star pool, the 25 row Classic Collection comparison, the conversion figures and the Greninja, Espeon and Japanese reprint rows were computed across all 111,891 dataset rows on November 11, 2026, inside a single snapshot.
• PriceCharting, Umbreon #17 Pokemon Celebrations, price table and completed sales tape read November 11, 2026. The PSA 10 median uses 30 PSA titled rows from November 3 to 11, the PSA 9 median uses 24 from October 28 to November 10, both after dropping CGC, BGS, TAG, ACE and SGC rows. PriceCharting's own algorithmic PSA 10 figure read $284.56 the same day, about five percent under the realised median.
• TCGplayer latest sales for product 250332, read November 11, 2026, for the $68.00 Near Mint median.
• PSA, grading service pricing, read November 11, 2026, for the $59.99 Standard fee, the $1,000 maximum insured value, the 70 to 80 business day estimate and the paused Value tier.
• Bulbapedia, Umbreon (POP Series 5 17), POP Series 5, Celebrations and Greninja (SWSH Promo 144), all read November 11, 2026, for the PLAY Promotional origin and points requirements, the Organized Play window, the October 8 2021 release, the four cards per pack and single card pack formats, the Confetti Holofoil and etching note, and the Fukuda credits.
• Illustrator credit, HP, Poke POWER text, attack text, copyright line, card number and anniversary logo placement read off the Celebrations Classic Collection card face.