Pokémon TCG - Is VMAX, Full Arts or Secret Rares the best value?

Secret Rares, Full Arts, and VMAX are all valuable in the Pokémon TCG, but only one of them is the most valuable for card collectors.

The value of your Pokémon Trading Card Game cards is now more important than ever. The rise of Pokémon TCG investing in recent years has emphasized singles rather than sets or boxes, which were once safer and more desirable commodities for traders. Hence, investors are focusing on VMAX, Full Art and Secret Rare cards due to their scarcity and attractiveness. While each of these three types of cards is highly sought after, it has to be the most valuable of them all.

Technically, Full Arts and VMAXs can be Secret Rares, while most VMAXs are either Full Arts or Alt Arts. Still, each of these categories can offer value to Pokémon TCG collectors. VMAX cards feature Pokémon with stats and abilities they don't usually have, such as Fusion Strike's Mew VMAX, while Secret Rares are usually the most anticipated before any series release due to their mystery.

Secret Rares Are Consistently The Most Valuable Pokémon Cards

When it comes to the Pokémon Sun and Moon and Sword and Shield series, Secret Rares has always been one of the highest value cards. That's likely to continue, too, unless a more lucrative card sort emerges for Pokémon TCG when the Scarlet and Violet set was released. Any list of the most expensive cards of the past few years has nearly included Secret Rares, including Screen Rant's most valuable Pokémon TCG card since 2022. Much of the reason for this has to do with the fact that many cards become Secret Rares, as they are a combination of VMAX and Full Art cards, which makes them even rarer and more popular.

Why Secret Rares Are So Valuable In The Pokémon TCG

The reason behind the high value of Secret Rares in Pokémon TCG has to do with how the rarity levels of Pokémon cards work. There are four basic levels of rarity: Common, Uncommon, Rare, and Promotional. In the rare category, though, there are five more. Bleeding Cool explains that the five categories are Holo Rares, Reverse Holos, Ultra Rares (including VMAX), Full Arts, and finally, all Secret Rares from Pokémon TCG (including Rainbow Rares and Alt-Arts).

While Ultra Rares and Full Arts have a definitive definition of what the cards should look like, Secret Rares do not: their only definitive characteristic is that their card number will be outside of the deck number. As a result, the Pokémon TCG has made Secret Rares a particularly popular card By combining the attributes of VMAX and Full Arts. By combining them, Secret Rares become more valuable than VMAX and Full Arts by themselves.

For example, Ultra Rare cards should theoretically make a fortune for Pokémon TCG collectors, such as VMAX Pikachu from the Pokémon TCG Vivid Voltage expansion pack. However, TCGPlayer lists its value (at the time of writing) as only $4.75, while its past value has peaked at $8.88. For comparison, the Rainbow Rare Full Art (aka Secret Rare) version of the same card sells for $144.64 on TCGPlayer.

With these Pikachu cards, the Secret Rare label is gaining value from their designs by making their Full Art and VMAX designs even rarer than before. As the aforementioned list of the most valuable Pokémon TCG cards suggests, this pattern usually repeats, meaning Secret Rares are always more valuable than other cards.

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