Chinese and Korean Pokémon cards: real or fake?

You have a Pokémon card covered in Chinese or Korean characters and you are not sure what to make of it. It is the question we get asked most, and the answer is one sentence: official Chinese and Korean Pokémon cards genuinely exist. A card in Chinese is not a fake card. Counterfeits do exist too, and they often imitate these editions precisely because people know them least.

The official Asian editions

• Japanese — the original edition, from which every other is derived. A Japanese set usually lands months before its Western equivalent, and the set boundaries differ: one English set often corresponds to two Japanese sets merged.
• Simplified Chinese — the official edition for mainland China, launched in 2022. Set codes begin with CS (CSM2C, CSV10C). It is the newest and the least known in Europe.
• Traditional Chinese — for Taiwan, Hong Kong and part of South-East Asia. Distinct from simplified Chinese: different products, different calendar.
• Korean — an official edition, usually mirroring the Japanese sets a few months later.

All are licensed printings, most of them produced in Japan, with print quality equal to or better than Western editions. They are not second-rate products.

Spotting a counterfeit

1. Light through the card. A real Pokémon card has a black ink layer between its two faces: held up to a lamp, it lets almost no light through. A counterfeit is nearly always more translucent. Fastest and most reliable test there is.
2. Texture and cut. Real cards have an even grain and clean edges; fakes are often too glossy, too smooth, with ragged edges or an off-centre white border.
3. The text. On a fake, the font is frequently off, text is blurry under a loupe, or the copyright line at the bottom carries a mistake.
4. The back. The blue of the back is a very specific colour. A back that is too light, too purple or too dark is a strong signal. Always compare against a card you are sure of.

One more marker, especially for Chinese cards: counterfeits circulate overwhelmingly in cut-price "mystery" lots. A single Chinese card sold by a seller who states the set code is far more reassuring than a hundred-card lot for five euros.

Reading the numbering

The hard part with Asian editions is that the numbering does not map onto English sets. A card marked 103/150 in a Chinese set has neither the same total nor the same contents as the English set with a similar name. To identify a card precisely you need three things: the set code printed at the bottom (like CSM2C), the number and the total. Without the set code, two different cards can carry the same number.

What they are worth

General rule: at equal Pokémon and rarity, a Japanese card usually trades below an English one in raw condition, because the English-speaking market is far larger. Chinese cards are even less liquid in Europe, so cheaper — but print runs are small and some illustrations are exclusive, which creates sharp exceptions.

Second rule, and the more important one: grading changes everything on these editions. A Japanese or Chinese card in PSA 10 sells into a global market, while the same card raw only finds a local buyer. That is where the gap opens.

To know what your card is actually worth there is no shortcut: you compare real listings, market by market. Kardz does it from a photo — identifies the card, compares eBay listings across eight countries, separates raw from PSA 9, PSA 10 and CGC, and works out whether grading pays once fees and shipping are out.

See also: Pokémon card prices.