If you are searching for price-charting data on a “Lombre” card from the EX Ruby & Sapphire set, the short answer is that no such card exists. Lombre was never printed in EX Ruby & Sapphire. That set, released on July 18, 2003 as the first expansion of the EX era, contains 109 cards, and every card-number slot a collector might expect Lombre to occupy is held by a different Pokémon. There is no Lombre product page for this set on any marketplace because there is no Lombre card to sell.
The card you are almost certainly looking for is the EX Sandstorm Lombre, which arrived two months later on September 18, 2003. EX Sandstorm produced two distinct Lombre cards: #45/100 and #46/100. As a concrete example of the mix-up, a search for “EX Ruby & Sapphire #45” returns Skitty, not Lombre, while #45 in EX Sandstorm is the Water-type Lombre with the “Rain Dish” Poké-BODY. If a price guide, spreadsheet, or article has paired Lombre with Ruby & Sapphire, the set name is simply wrong. This article explains where the confusion comes from, what the real Lombre cards are worth, and how to price them correctly so you do not end up tracking a card that was never made.
Table of Contents
- Why Can’t You Find Price Charting for EX Ruby and Sapphire Lombre?
- Where Lombre Actually Appears: EX Sandstorm #45/100 and #46/100
- The Full Lombre Printing History Across Sets
- How to Price a Real Lombre Card Correctly
- Common Pricing Pitfalls and Data Errors to Watch For
- How the EX Ruby and Sapphire Set Is Actually Structured
- Lotad and Ludicolo, the Rest of the Evolution Line
- Frequently Asked Questions
Why Can’t You Find Price Charting for EX Ruby and Sapphire Lombre?
The reason no price data exists is straightforward: Lombre is not in the EX Ruby & Sapphire checklist. The set runs 109 cards, and the slots collectors tend to associate with the Hoenn water starters and early-route Pokémon are filled by other cards entirely. Confirmed examples from the Ruby & Sapphire numbering include #36 Lairon, #39 Manectric, #44 Skitty, #45 Slakoth, #51 Carvanha, #56 Makuhita, #59 Mudkip, and both #66 and #68 Ralts. None of those is Lombre. This matters because price-charting tools are organized by set and card number.
If you query a card that does not exist in a set, the tool has nothing to return, or worse, it may auto-suggest a similarly named entry from a different set and give you a misleading figure. For comparison, if you searched “Ruby & Sapphire Mudkip,” you would correctly land on #59, a real card. Searching “Ruby & Sapphire Lombre” produces a dead end because the underlying data simply has no row for it. A useful sanity check before trusting any price: confirm the card number against an independent checklist such as the TCGplayer Ruby & Sapphire price guide or Pokellector’s set gallery. If the Pokémon name and the number do not line up across two sources, treat the listing as an error rather than a rare variant.
Where Lombre Actually Appears: EX Sandstorm #45/100 and #46/100
The genuine early-era Lombre cards belong to EX Sandstorm, the second EX-era set, released September 18, 2003. There are two of them, and they are easy to confuse with each other. The #45/100 Lombre is an Uncommon Stage 1 Water-type with 60 HP, evolves from Lotad, was illustrated by Tomokazu Komiya, and carries the “Rain Dish” Poké-BODY. The #46/100 Lombre is also Uncommon, has 70 HP, and additionally exists as a Reverse Foil printing. The warning here is about variants and condition.
The two Sandstorm Lombre cards have different numbers, different HP, and different artwork, so a price pulled for #45 does not apply to #46, and the Reverse Foil version of #46 commands a different figure than the standard copy. When you enter the card into a tracker, the difference between “45/100” and “46/100” and the presence or absence of “Reverse Holo” in the listing title can change the value meaningfully. Buyers who ignore that distinction sometimes overpay for a base copy thinking they bought the reverse foil, or undervalue a reverse foil listed without the label. For grading, remember that these are 2003 cards. Even an Uncommon in a slabbed PSA 9 or 10 holder behaves very differently in price from a raw near-mint copy, and the EX-era reverse foils in particular are prone to surface scratching that caps the grade.
The Full Lombre Printing History Across Sets
Lombre, National Pokédex #271, has been reprinted many times since 2003, which is part of why set attribution errors are so common. Beyond the two EX Sandstorm cards, Lombre appears in EX Deoxys (#33 and #34), EX Crystal Guardians (#37), Secret Wonders (#54), Platinum (#52), Plasma Storm (#30), Primal Clash (#11), Celestial Storm (#37), Rebel Clash (#8), Evolving Skies (#33), Journey Together (#36), and Phantasmal Flames (#6). A specific example of how this causes pricing mistakes: both EX Crystal Guardians and Celestial Storm list a Lombre at #37.
If you only record the number and not the set, those two entirely different cards collapse into one ambiguous entry, and any price you attach is meaningless. The same trap explains the Ruby & Sapphire confusion, where a collector remembers an “EX-era Lombre” and attaches it to the first EX set they think of rather than the one it was actually printed in. When building a collection list, always record the set name, the card number, and the rarity together. Serebii’s Cardex entry for #271 lists every Lombre printing in one place and is a reliable way to confirm which set a given card belongs to before you log a value.
How to Price a Real Lombre Card Correctly
Once you have the right set, pricing Lombre is simple, because it is a low-value common-to-uncommon card in nearly every printing. The EX Sandstorm copies are vintage Uncommons that typically trade for a couple of dollars or less raw, in line with other non-holo Uncommons from 2003. By way of comparison, the Ruby & Sapphire cards that get mistaken for Lombre sit in the same range: #51 Carvanha carries roughly a $0.95 market price and #56 Makuhita around $0.32, which gives you a realistic ceiling for what an EX-era Lombre is worth ungraded. The tradeoff to weigh is grading cost against card value.
Submitting a sub-$2 raw Lombre for professional grading rarely makes financial sense, because the grading fee alone will exceed the card’s value unless it grades a pristine 10 and happens to be a sought-after variant. For most collectors, the better move is to buy an already-graded copy if you want a slab, rather than gambling a fee on a low-value raw card. If you are pricing to sell, compare the “sold” listings rather than active asking prices. Active listings for cheap vintage cards are frequently optimistic, and a tracker that blends asks with sales will overstate what you can actually realize. Filtering to completed sales gives the honest number.
Common Pricing Pitfalls and Data Errors to Watch For
The biggest pitfall is the one this article addresses: trusting a set-and-card pairing that does not exist. Automated price aggregators and user-generated collection databases sometimes contain phantom entries created by mislabeled listings. If a seller lists a Sandstorm Lombre but types “Ruby & Sapphire” in the title, that error can propagate into search results and even into a tracker’s name index. The result is a “price” for a card that was never printed. A related limitation is that low-value vintage commons generate very little dated market activity.
Lombre does not produce week-to-week price movement the way a Charizard does, so any tool claiming a precise “current” value for it is extrapolating from thin data. Treat a single quoted figure for a sub-$2 card as a rough estimate, not a live market rate, and expect wide variance between individual sales depending on condition and shipping. Finally, be cautious with bulk-bought lots. EX-era Uncommons like Lombre are often sold in mixed lots where the per-card value is effectively rounding error. Pricing a single Lombre against a lot’s per-card average will mislead you in both directions, because the lot price reflects bulk convenience, not the standalone value of any one card.
How the EX Ruby and Sapphire Set Is Actually Structured
EX Ruby & Sapphire deserves attention on its own terms, because understanding its checklist is the fastest way to confirm Lombre is not in it. As the inaugural EX-era set, it introduced Pokémon-ex cards and ran 109 entries built around the newly released Hoenn region.
The early numbers cover Pokémon such as Lairon (#36), Manectric (#39), Skitty (#44), Slakoth (#45), Carvanha (#51), Makuhita (#56), Mudkip (#59), and Ralts (#66 and #68). As an example of how to use this, if a listing claims “EX Ruby & Sapphire Lombre #45,” you can immediately flag it as wrong, because #45 in that set is Slakoth. The number is already taken, which is the clearest possible proof that the Lombre attribution is a labeling mistake rather than an obscure variant you have not heard of.
Lotad and Ludicolo, the Rest of the Evolution Line
Because Lombre is the middle stage of an evolution line, collectors hunting it often want the whole chain, and the same set-attribution care applies to its relatives. Lombre evolves from Lotad and into Ludicolo, and in EX Sandstorm specifically the line is printed together, with the #45/100 Lombre evolving from a Lotad in the same set.
Pricing the full Lotad–Lombre–Ludicolo line means checking three separate card numbers, each with its own rarity and its own value. A concrete example: in EX Sandstorm, the Ludicolo that caps the line is a higher-rarity card than the Uncommon Lombre, so it will not share Lombre’s couple-of-dollars price point. If you are assembling the evolution line as a set, budget for the rare top-stage card separately rather than assuming all three cards fall in the same low range.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a Lombre card in EX Ruby & Sapphire?
No. EX Ruby & Sapphire has 109 cards and none of them is Lombre. The slots collectors expect Lombre to fill are held by other Pokémon, such as Slakoth at #45.
Which set actually has the early Lombre card?
EX Sandstorm, released September 18, 2003. It contains two Lombre cards, #45/100 (60 HP, Rain Dish Poké-BODY) and #46/100 (70 HP, also printed as a Reverse Foil).
How much is an EX-era Lombre worth?
As a vintage Uncommon, a raw copy typically trades for a couple of dollars or less, comparable to EX-era cards like Carvanha (~$0.95) and Makuhita (~$0.32).
Why does a price tracker show no data for Ruby & Sapphire Lombre?
Because the card does not exist, there is no row for it. Any figure you see is likely pulled from a mislabeled listing or auto-matched to a Lombre from a different set.
Should I get my Lombre professionally graded?
Usually not. The grading fee typically exceeds the card’s raw value unless it grades a pristine 10 in a sought-after variant. Buying an already-graded copy is often the better path.
How many times has Lombre been printed overall?
Many. Beyond EX Sandstorm, Lombre appears in EX Deoxys, EX Crystal Guardians, Secret Wonders, Platinum, Plasma Storm, Primal Clash, Celestial Storm, Rebel Clash, Evolving Skies, Journey Together, and Phantasmal Flames.
