Pokémon added a tiny logo to a promo card in 2023. It looked like a small change. For ETB collectors, it really wasn’t.
THE ETB RABBIT HOLE · PART 3 OF 5 · LAST REVIEWED AUGUST 2026
By Pikajo | Camp Onion
Short on time? There’s a quick-fire FAQ at the bottom.
Last week, we left Pokémon Center ETBs in a slightly strange place.
They had extra packs.
Different accessories.
Pins. Coins. Metal bits.
One had 19 booster packs.
The very first one had launched with the wrong number of boosters and required an apology.
All perfectly normal Pokémon behaviour.
But the feature most collectors now associate with a Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box still didn’t exist.
There was no special stamped ETB promo.
Then Scarlet & Violet arrived.
Pokémon took the promo card already going into the ETB, printed another copy, added a little Pokémon Center logo and put both cards in the exclusive box.
That’s it.
Tiny logo.
Same artwork.
Same promo number.
And suddenly:
I’ve completed the promo set.
became:
I’ve completed the promo set... depending on how we’re defining complete.
Welcome back to The ETB Rabbit Hole.
This week, we’re arguing with a stamp.
31 March 2023: the stamp arrives
Scarlet & Violet didn’t just begin a new Pokémon TCG era.
It quietly changed the Elite Trainer Box too.
The standard ETB now contained:
9 booster packs
and
1 guaranteed full-art promo card.
The Pokémon Center version went further:
11 booster packs
1 normal promo
and
1 additional copy carrying the Pokémon Center logo.
And because Scarlet & Violet launched with 2 ETBs, we don’t technically have 1 first Pokémon Center-stamped ETB promo.
We have 2 joint firsts:
Miraidon SVP 013
and
Koraidon SVP 014.
Both arrived on 31 March 2023.
That one little change basically created the modern Pokémon Center ETB.
The Sword & Shield boxes we’d just spent Week 2 investigating could have extra packs, pins, coins, metal accessories and whatever else Pokémon fancied putting in that particular box.
Scarlet & Violet was much easier.
STANDARD ETB
9 packs
1 promo
POKÉMON CENTER ETB
11 packs
1 normal promo
1 Pokémon Center-stamped promo
Simple.
Except the cards themselves introduced a new problem.
Because the stamped promo wasn’t given a new number.
Same card number. Different card.
Take Miraidon.
The normal promo is:
SVP 013.
The Pokémon Center-stamped version?
Also:
SVP 013.
Koraidon works exactly the same way.
Normal:
SVP 014.
Stamped:
SVP 014.
The Pokémon Center logo creates a variant of the promo, rather than another numbered Black Star Promo.
Which sounds like an incredibly small technical distinction.
Until you collect them.
Imagine you’ve got a checklist of Scarlet & Violet Black Star Promos.
013?
Tick.
014?
Tick.
Lovely.
Finished.
Except...
Do you have stamped 013?
And stamped 014?
No?
Congratulations.
Pokémon has discovered DLC for your binder.
WAIT, WHAT?
Your numbered checklist can be complete while your variant collection isn’t
This is where the word complete becomes wonderfully unhelpful.
If you collect 1 copy of every numbered Scarlet & Violet Black Star Promo, SVP 013 only needs ticking once.
If you collect every officially released variant, you need both Miraidons.
Same with Koraidon.
So which collection is actually complete?
Both can be.
They’re simply different collecting goals.
But that tiny stamp created an entirely new branch of ETB collecting without Pokémon having to create another card number.
The number tells you which promo you’ve got.
The stamp tells you which version of it you’ve got.
One tiny logo.
One significantly more annoying spreadsheet.
There was another Pokémon Center promo hiding around the same launch
Here’s a detail that’s easy to miss when looking back at those first Scarlet & Violet ETBs.
Before the set even launched, Pokémon Center announced a special Lechonk foil card for customers pre-ordering selected Scarlet & Violet products.
And yes, the qualifying products included both the Koraidon and Miraidon Pokémon Center ETBs.
So imagine ordering one of these boxes at launch.
Inside your ETB:
normal Koraidon or Miraidon promo
Pokémon Center-stamped Koraidon or Miraidon promo
And depending on the qualifying Pokémon Center promotion:
Lechonk.
Pokémon apparently looked at the beginning of the Scarlet & Violet era and decided what collectors really needed was more promotional cardboard.
To be clear, Lechonk wasn’t an ETB promo. It was a separate Pokémon Center purchase promotion.
But it’s a lovely little snapshot of what was happening around the exact moment stamped ETB promos arrived.
The stamp wasn’t appearing in isolation.
Pokémon Center was becoming a place where exclusive card variants themselves could be part of the reason to buy there.
And Pokémon was only getting started.
69 days later, Pikachu confirmed the pattern
9 June 2023.
Paldea Evolved.
If anyone thought the Scarlet & Violet stamp might have been a one-off experiment, Pikachu arrived to clear things up.
The standard Paldea Evolved ETB contained 9 booster packs and 1 Pikachu promo.
The Pokémon Center version contained 11 packs, the normal Pikachu and another copy carrying the Pokémon Center logo.
So there we have it.
2 releases.
Same system.
The stamp was staying.
THE TINY DETAIL
Have another look at that Pikachu artwork.
Pikachu isn’t alone.
Sprigatito, Fuecoco and Quaxly are all there too.
Even better, the card’s attack is called Adventuring Together.
So if you bought the box because you wanted the Pikachu promo, you technically came home with most of the Paldea starter committee as well.
Quaxly will be taking attendance.
Then Charmander turned up looking furious
11 August 2023.
Obsidian Flames.
And if you’ve seen this ETB promo, you’ll probably remember it.
Charmander is indoors.
Pidgey is outside.
Charmander is pressed against the window looking at Pidgey with the expression of someone who has just discovered the neighbour’s cat in their garden for the 14th time that week.
The Pokémon Center ETB contained 11 Obsidian Flames packs, the normal Charmander promo and another copy with the Pokémon Center logo.
But this card has a much better secret.
THE TINY DETAIL
Britain and other international markets got this Charmander artwork before Japan
That feels backwards, doesn’t it?
There’s an understandable assumption in Pokémon collecting that the Japanese card must have existed first and the international version followed later.
Not here.
MINAMINAMI Take’s Charmander artwork appeared internationally as the Obsidian Flames ETB promo.
The artwork wasn’t released in Japan until 10 November 2023, when it appeared alongside Bulbasaur and Squirtle Illustration Rares in the Japanese Special Deck Set ex Venusaur & Charizard & Blastoise.
So for once:
international collectors got the artwork first.
Japan had to wait.
I’m sure they coped.
This also means an Elite Trainer Box wasn’t merely a place to get a duplicate card with a little stamp on it.
It could be the first release of an entirely new Pokémon TCG artwork.
Our humble storage box is getting ideas above its station.
Then Pokémon chose Snorlax for 151
22 September 2023.
Pokémon 151.
A set based around the original Kanto Pokédex.
And sitting inside its ETB?
Snorlax.
The standard box contained 9 Pokémon 151 booster packs and the Snorlax promo.
The Pokémon Center version increased that to 11 packs and included both the normal and Pokémon Center-stamped versions of Snorlax.
By this point, the stamp wasn’t a surprise anymore.
That is important.
In March, it was new.
In June, Pikachu proved Pokémon was doing it again.
By the end of September, we’d had Koraidon, Miraidon, Pikachu, Charmander and Snorlax.
The experiment phase was over rather quickly.
The stamped promo had become part of the product.
And Pokémon kept doing it
After 151 came more.
Paradox Rift used Scream Tail and Iron Bundle.
Paldean Fates brought Shiny Mimikyu.
Surging Sparks used Magneton.
Prismatic Evolutions brought Eevee.
Journey Together used N’s Zorua.
Destined Rivals followed with Team Rocket’s Wobbuffet.
Then Pokémon moved beyond Scarlet & Violet and into the Mega Evolution era.
And the Pokémon Center stamp survived.
That’s the important bit.
We don’t need to catalogue every box here because we’d be here until someone invents another Eevee evolution.
What matters is this:
the stamp wasn’t a Scarlet & Violet novelty.
It became part of the identity of the Pokémon Center ETB.
The Pokémon Center ETB finally had an easy answer to “what’s different?”
This might actually be the biggest change.
Think back to Week 2.
During Sword & Shield, explaining what made the Pokémon Center version different could require a small presentation.
More packs.
Sometimes.
Different sleeves.
Maybe.
Metal bits.
A pin.
A deck box.
An impressive number of Celebrations packs.
Occasionally 2 booster packs that were supposed to be inside but weren’t.
Scarlet & Violet simplified things enormously.
The Pokémon Center box had more packs and an exclusive version of the promo.
That’s easy to understand.
More importantly, that stamped card isn’t simply another chance at pulling something from the boosters.
You know it’s there.
If you want that specific variant, buying the standard ETB won’t give it to you.
The box itself is still different.
But now there is a specific piece of cardboard inside it that visibly proves which version you bought.
And collectors do tend to enjoy specific pieces of cardboard.
I’ve noticed.
So is the stamped promo rarer?
Careful.
This is where Pokémon collecting can go from:
interesting historical fact
to
somebody on Facebook has done mathematics with absolutely no numbers.
The stamped promo has a different distribution.
You got it from the Pokémon Center version rather than the standard ETB.
That much we can prove.
What Pokémon does not give us is a nice public census saying:
We printed exactly 73,421 of these. Dave counted them.
So we’re not going to invent one.
We cannot automatically turn:
Pokémon Center exclusive
into:
extremely rare
and then into:
therefore worth £X forever.
Those are separate claims.
Availability.
Print quantity.
Surviving population.
Demand.
Market value.
They are related subjects, but they are not interchangeable.
We’re going to get properly stuck into that mess in Week 5.
Bring snacks.
And if you keep the promos sealed...
Oh no.
Because obviously the rabbit hole has another basement.
ETB promos arrive packaged.
Some collectors open them and put them into binders.
Some keep them sealed.
Which means somebody, somewhere, can decide they need:
the normal promo
the stamped promo
the normal promo still sealed
the stamped promo still sealed
the sealed Pokémon Center ETB containing both
and presumably a quiet lie-down afterwards.
To be very clear, Pokémon does not publish a checklist demanding you collect cards this way.
This is entirely a problem collectors are capable of creating for ourselves.
I respect the commitment.
I fear the spreadsheet.
But the really weird promo stuff is still coming
The stamp changed what was inside a Pokémon Center ETB.
But it isn’t the strangest thing Pokémon has done with ETB promos.
Because once these boxes became a regular home for exclusive artwork, something else started happening.
Imagine finding a beautiful Illustration Rare in a Japanese expansion.
You wait for the English set.
The set arrives.
You check the list.
It’s gone.
Where is it?
Cut from English?
Never released?
Lost behind the sofa at Pokémon HQ?
No.
Sometimes the answer is:
they put it in the ETB instead.
And once we start following that thread, we also end up having to talk about so-called Japanese ETBs that aren’t actually ETBs at all.
That’s next week’s problem.
For now, I have a question.
Your turn: does the stamp count as another card?
You’ve got Miraidon SVP 013.
Then you discover Miraidon SVP 013 with the Pokémon Center logo.
For your collection, are those:
1 card with 2 variants
or
2 cards you need before that binder slot feels complete?
And be honest.
If you own the normal version but know the stamped one exists, does that little empty space start whispering to you?
You know there’s another one...
I also want to know your favourite Pokémon Center-stamped ETB promo so far.
Charmander?
Snorlax?
Eevee?
N’s Zorua?
Something else entirely?
Tell me in the comments.
There is no wrong answer.
Unless you say the stamp doesn’t matter and then secretly own 14 of them.
I’ll know.
Next week at Camp Onion...
Wait... That Card Isn’t in the Set?
You’ve found an Illustration Rare in a Japanese Pokémon set.
You wait for the English release.
You open the set list.
It’s missing.
Then you look at the Elite Trainer Box.
Oh.
There it is.
Next week we’re investigating the increasingly strange relationship between ETB promos and the sets they’re supposedly promoting.
We’re looking at cards that moved from Japanese expansions into English promo slots, artwork that appeared internationally before Japan, and the modern cards that don’t sit where you might expect them to.
And we’re finally dealing with something I keep seeing online:
“Japanese ETBs.”
Because Japan does have big trainer boxes full of packs, cards and accessories.
There’s just one problem.
They’re not actually called Elite Trainer Boxes.
Then, just when we think we’ve worked out exactly what belongs inside an ETB, Pokémon changes the accessories again.
Honestly, at this point I think they’re doing it specifically to keep me busy.
See you next week.
Pikajo 🧅
Pokémon Center-stamped promo FAQs: the quick version
When did Pokémon Center-stamped ETB promos begin?
They began with the Scarlet & Violet Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Boxes on 31 March 2023. Koraidon and Miraidon launched together, so their stamped promos are joint firsts.
What were the first Pokémon Center-stamped ETB promos?
Miraidon SVP 013 and Koraidon SVP 014 were the first stamped ETB promos, released together with Scarlet & Violet.
Does a Pokémon Center-stamped promo get a different promo number?
Not necessarily. The stamped card can be a variant of the same numbered Black Star Promo. That is why collectors who want every variant may need both the ordinary and stamped versions.
What was the difference between a standard Scarlet & Violet ETB and the Pokémon Center version?
The standard Scarlet & Violet ETB contained 9 booster packs and 1 full-art promo. The Pokémon Center version contained 11 booster packs, the normal promo and an additional Pokémon Center-stamped version.
Did Paldea Evolved continue the stamped promo format?
Yes. Its Pokémon Center ETB contained 11 packs, a normal Pikachu promo and another Pikachu bearing the Pokémon Center logo. The standard ETB contained 9 packs and 1 Pikachu promo.
Did the Obsidian Flames Pokémon Center ETB contain 2 Charmander promos?
Yes. It contained the normal full-art Charmander promo and a second version carrying the Pokémon Center logo, alongside 11 Obsidian Flames booster packs.
Did the Obsidian Flames Charmander artwork release outside Japan first?
Yes. The Charmander artwork was used internationally as the Obsidian Flames ETB promo before appearing in Japan’s Special Deck Set ex Venusaur & Charizard & Blastoise on 10 November 2023.
Does a Pokémon Center stamp automatically mean a card is rare?
No. It proves a different distribution route, not an exact print population. Without verified production figures, claims about precise rarity or surviving numbers should be treated cautiously.
Are Pokémon Center-stamped ETB promos still a thing?
Yes. The concept continued beyond the original Scarlet & Violet releases and into the following Pokémon TCG era.
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