In EX Unseen Forces, only a short list of cards clears the cost of grading: Umbreon ex 112/115, Espeon ex 102/115, Lugia ex 105, Tyranitar ex 111, the Celebi ex secret rare, and the three Gold Stars — Entei, Raikou and Suicune. Everything else in the set, including the entire 28-card Unown subset, usually loses money once you pay the fee and the return shipping.
EX Unseen Forces is a 2005 Pokémon TCG expansion of 145 cards. "Grading" means sending a card to a third-party service like PSA, which authenticates it, assigns a 1–10 condition score and seals it in a slab. The value of doing that depends entirely on the gap between a card's raw price and its graded price.
Table of Contents
- What's actually in the set
- Umbreon ex and Espeon ex are the two that carry the set
- The gem rate is the number that should scare you
- The Gold Stars are common in gem mint
- Why the Unown subset fails the maths
- A working submission rule for this set
- Frequently Asked Questions
What's actually in the set
EX Unseen Forces was released on 22 August 2005. According to the Bulbapedia set listing, it contains 115 main-numbered cards, two secret rares — Rocket's Persian ex and Celebi ex — and a 28-card all-holo Unown subset spelling out the alphabet. The headline pulls are the three Gold Stars: Entei (113), Raikou (114) and Suicune (115).
Gold Stars were a mid-2000s ultra-rare treatment with a gold star next to the Pokémon's name and a distinctive foil pattern. That structure matters for grading decisions. The set has a small tier of genuinely expensive cards, a large tier of holo Unown that look special but trade cheaply, and a long tail of commons and trainers with no graded market worth chasing.
Umbreon ex and Espeon ex are the two that carry the set
Umbreon ex 112/115 is the set's ceiling. PSA's auction price records show a PSA 10 sale of $26,099 on 15 October 2025, with trackers quoting the PSA 10 market anywhere from roughly $15,800 to $34,174 — a wide band that reflects how few change hands. Espeon ex 102/115 is the clear second.
PSA's card facts page records a PSA 10 sale of $9,150, with current PSA 10 quotes near $7,250. Both are worth submitting if the raw copy is strong. But "strong" is doing heavy lifting here, and the population data explains why.
The gem rate is the number that should scare you
Umbreon ex has roughly 1,554 PSA submissions and only 46 of them graded PSA 10, per the Pikawiz population report for the set. That is a gem rate near 3%.
In practice, about 97 of every 100 people who thought their Umbreon ex was a 10 were wrong. A PSA 9 is worth a fraction of the 10, so most of those submissions returned far less than the owner expected. Check these before you send anything from this era:.
- **Centering** — 2005-era ex cards are notorious for off-centre print, and PSA weights it heavily.
- **Edges and corners** — hold the card at an angle under a light; the black-bordered holo foil shows white edge wear instantly.
- **Surface** — look for print lines and scuffs in the foil, which are invisible flat-on and obvious when tilted.
- **Back condition** — a flawless front with a dinged back still caps at 9.
The Gold Stars are common in gem mint
It is easy to assume the three Gold Stars are automatic grading candidates because they are the set's chase pulls. The population says otherwise. An eBay listing for Suicune Gold Star 115 in PSA 10 advertises "POP 269" — hundreds of gem mint copies already exist.
Suicune Gold Star sits around $6,600 in PSA 10, according to the PokeInvest set page, alongside Lugia ex 105 at roughly $10,332, Celebi ex 117 at about $8,202 and Tyranitar ex 111 near $5,801. Those are still real numbers, and a clean Gold Star is worth grading. The point is that supply, not scarcity of the card itself, sets the ceiling — so the price is less likely to run away from you than Umbreon's 46-copy pop suggests for the top card.
Why the Unown subset fails the maths
Unown R] trades around $31 raw against roughly $280 in PSA 10, per [PokeInvest's card page. That is a spread of about $250 — and only if the card gems. Grading costs changed sharply in 2026.
PSA paused new submissions on all four Value tiers on 2 June 2026 while working through a backlog of roughly 14 million cards, which left Regular at $79.99 per card as the cheapest tier accepting submissions, according to grading fee summaries for 2026. Regular runs 25 business days with a $1,500 declared-value cap, plus a 2% insurance surcharge above $499 declared value. At an $79.99 floor, before shipping both ways, a card needs roughly $250 or more of PSA 10 upside over its raw price just to be worth the risk. A PSA 9 Unown returns a fraction of the $280 figure, so a single miss wipes out the profit on several successes.
A working submission rule for this set
Grade the ex cards — Umbreon, Espeon, Lugia, Tyranitar and the Celebi secret rare — plus the three Gold Stars, and almost nothing else. Commons, trainers and most of the Unown subset lose money even when they come back as a 10.
One extra consideration for the top card: with Umbreon ex quoted as high as $34,174 in PSA 10, the $1,500 declared-value cap on the Regular tier does not cover it. A card at that value belongs in a higher service level, which costs more per card but carries the insurance that matches what you are shipping.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a PSA 9 Umbreon ex still worth having graded?
It holds value as an authenticated copy, but with only 46 PSA 10s out of about 1,554 submissions, a 9 is the common outcome and worth far less than the $26,099 PSA 10 sale PSA recorded in October 2025.
Does the 2026 PSA backlog affect which cards I should submit?
Yes. With the Value tiers paused since 2 June 2026 and Regular at $79.99, the cheapest available option is roughly double what many collectors budgeted, which pushes mid-value cards below the break-even line.
Why is Celebi ex worth more than two of the Gold Stars?
Celebi ex 117 is a secret rare sitting above the main 115-card numbering, and it quotes near $8,202 in PSA 10 — above Suicune Gold Star's roughly $6,600.
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