Celebrations

What Celebrations is

Celebrations is the special expansion released on October 8, 2021 under the set code CEL to mark the 25th anniversary of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, which launched in Japan on October 20, 1996. Like Shining Fates and Champion's Path before it, it was sold only in branded merchandise, never in booster boxes, and each four card pack pulls from a 25 card main set of Legendary and Mythical Pokémon from across the franchise plus a parade of Pikachu, with Flying Pikachu and Surfing Pikachu each printed as both Pokémon V and Pokémon VMAX.

The main set holds 12 rares, five holofoil rares, four Pokémon V, two Pokémon VMAX, one Ultra rare, Ken Sugimori's Professor's Research featuring Professor Oak at 24, and one secret rare, the gold Mew 25 by Saki Hayashiro. Psychic is the most represented type at 7 cards and Lightning follows at 6. There is no reverse holofoil parallel set.

Alongside it runs the Classic Collection, a 25 card subset of close replicas of popular cards from earlier series, printed with etching and a Confetti Holofoil pattern and keeping their original numbering, rarity and copyright, minus the Wizards of the Coast line on the Original and Neo Series cards. The Japanese equivalent is the 25th Anniversary Collection of October 22, 2021, a 30 card set with five card packs.

What makes Celebrations different

• The Classic Collection Twenty five replicas of famous cards, from the Base Set Charizard 4 and Pikachu 58 to the Umbreon Gold Star 17, in Confetti Holofoil with the 25th Anniversary logo. They keep their original numbers and are not tournament legal unless the original print is legal in Expanded.
• Remixed mechanics The merchandise promos revived retired mechanics on modern Pokémon: Greninja as a Pokémon Star, Dragapult as a Pokémon Prime, Lance's Charizard V as an Owner's Pokémon, Dark Sylveon V, Zacian LV.X, Mimikyu Delta Species, Light Toxtricity and Hydreigon as a Pokémon SP, most marked as not usable at official tournaments.
• Pikachu V-UNION The four part Pikachu V-UNION assembles into a composite drawn by 25 different illustrators showing 25 Pikachu, sold with a Jumbo composite card in the Special Collection and Premium Playmat Collection.
• Four card packs Celebrations packs hold four cards and every card is holofoil, which is why the set has no reverse holofoil parallel and why complete sets are easy to build from a few products.
• Metal Charizard and Pikachu The Ultra-Premium Collection carried commemorative metal cards resembling the Base Set Charizard and Pikachu, two gold full art promos and 17 Celebrations packs, and those metal cards top the set's graded list as variants.

How Celebrations arrived

Celebrations released on October 8, 2021, between Evolving Skies in August and Fusion Strike in November, with its Japanese counterpart, the 25th Anniversary Collection, following on October 22, 2021. The first wave on October 8 brought the two Elite Trainer Boxes, the Dragapult Prime, Lance's Charizard V and Dark Sylveon V Collections, the Deluxe Pin Collection, the Pikachu V-UNION collections, eight Mini Tins whose art cards join into one image, the GameStop exclusive V Memories Collection and the UK exclusive Prime Collection.

The second wave on October 22, 2021 added the Premium Figure Collection with a Gigantamax Pikachu figure, the Ultra-Premium Collection and the Collector Chest with the Mimikyu Delta Species, Light Toxtricity and Hydreigon SP promos. Every product mixed Celebrations packs with other Sword & Shield Series packs, and General Mills cereal boxes later carried Celebrations packs as well.

Celebrations products and what came in them

The Elite Trainer Box holds ten Celebrations packs and five other Sword & Shield Series packs, 65 anniversary sleeves, 45 basic Energy cards, a player's guide, a rulebook, four dividers, six damage counter dice, a coin flip die, two markers and a Greninja Star promo. The Pokémon Center version holds 13 Celebrations packs and six others with metal dice, a metal anniversary coin, alternate sleeves and a deck box. The collections each pair a remixed promo, often in standard and Jumbo size, with a handful of Celebrations and other packs.

Collecting and grading Celebrations

The live prices above are led by variants and promos rather than the 25 card main set. The Ultra-Premium Collection metal Charizard and Pikachu, the Jumbo Pikachu, Light Toxtricity, the Greninja Star, the gold Pikachu V, Zacian LV.X and the Jumbo Mimikyu all outrank the main set, so match the variant label in the checklist before comparing. The Pikachu 5 and Mew 11 entries show high PSA 10 prices on very few sales and should be read as noise.

Within the cards you can pull from packs, the Classic Collection Charizard 4 leads, followed by the Umbreon Gold Star 17 and the Classic Collection Pikachu 58, with the gold Mew 25, the Flying and Surfing Pikachu VMAX and Mitsuhiro Arita's Zacian V 16 and Zamazenta V 18 the main set's own chase cards. Because every card is holofoil and packs are plentiful, raw complete sets are inexpensive and the graded premium sits on the Charizard.

Sealed Celebrations is a collector's market of its own: no booster boxes exist, so the Elite Trainer Boxes, Ultra-Premium Collection, collections, tins and Mini Tins in the sealed table above are how the set trades.