Pokémon Latias Gold Star #105 — EX Deoxys (Italian), PSA 9

The Latias Gold Star of EX Deoxys (2005), card #105/107, in its Italian printing and encapsulated by PSA at 9 MINT. The artwork is by Masakazu Fukuda and shows Latias in its shiny colouration, a dynamic pose that carries the gold-toned treatment collectors identify on sight as the Gold Star finish—the rarest tier of the EX era and the one that defined what a chase card would mean for the following decade.

Gold Stars were inserted at a rate that made them exceptional even at release, and the Italian printings of the EX sets were produced in markedly smaller numbers than their English counterparts, so high-grade Italian examples are the scarcest form in which these cards exist. Latias belongs to the celebrated Deoxys trio alongside Latios and Rayquaza, a grouping that gives the card a natural place inside a set-level collection as well as a standalone position among the era's landmark artworks.