Get a card
Fetch one card by our id or its alternate {set}-{number} id, with prices, images and translations on request.
/v1/cards/{id}2 with include=prices, the same as GET /v1/cards/{id}/pricesfree planCache-Control: public, max-age=60, s-maxage=300, stale-while-revalidate=600
No key yet? One call gets you one: POST /v1/accounts/free with an Idempotency-Key header and your email address returns a working key in the response. Keep the original Idempotency-Key and body for response replay for up to 24 hours, under the conditions in the quickstart. The trial is 800 credits over 30 days once the address is confirmed, no card; paid plans start at 29 € a month. See the quickstart and the pricing.
Returns the card object directly, not wrapped in a collection envelope. A missing id is 404 CARD_NOT_FOUND, which is a statement about the catalogue — cache it, do not poll it.
This is the price endpoint. include=prices expands the full per-source breakdown for the card, and the card row itself already carries index_eur and last_price_at whether you ask for the relation or not. The response below is a real one, trimmed at the fifteenth price row.
Path parameters
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
id required | string | — | Our public id (bs-4) or the alternate legacy_id, a string of the same {set}-{number} form (base1-4). Both resolve to the same row, so ids you already have stored need no translation table. An id written with the set slug in place of the set code resolves too — 30th-celebration-001 answers with the card whose id is 30c-001 — and the response always carries the canonical id. |
Query parameters
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
select | string | — | Comma-separated card fields to return. id is always included. camelCase and snake_case both resolve, so nationalPokedexNumbers works and comes back as national_pokedex_numbers. An unknown name is INVALID_SELECT_FIELD, with the full list in details.valid_fields. |
include | string | — | Comma-separated relations to expand: index, prices, translations, images, set, artist. Each one is an extra join, so ask only for what you render. include=index puts index_eur and last_price_at on the rows of a list or batch, at 1 credit per 50 cards requested. Without it they are not there: a select that names them gets rows without them and meta.withheld: ["index"], and an orderBy on them is 400 INVALID_PARAMETER. include=prices is how you get the per-source price breakdown, index included, and it makes the call a price call: 4 credits per 25 cards on a list or batch, 2 on a single card, and the rows are filtered by your plan exactly as on the price routes, with meta.withheld (the X-Plan-Withheld header on a single card) naming what was held back. A single card carries its index whatever you include. legalities is not an accepted value and is rejected with 400 INVALID_INCLUDE. |
lang | string | — | Locale for the card name: en, fr, de, ja, it, es, pt, zh — the eight with translation rows in the catalogue. A card with no translation in the requested locale falls back to English rather than to null. |
Headers
| Name | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
X-Api-Key required | string | — | Your API key. Authorization: Bearer <key> is accepted as an alias. |
If-None-Match | string | — | Send back the ETag you stored. The API returns a strong ETag on every catalogue response, and a 304 is a header exchange: no body, no database row read. |
Example request
curl -s -G "https://api.pokemontcgapi.com/v1/cards/base1-4" \
--data-urlencode "include=prices" \
-H "X-Api-Key: $PTCG_API_KEY"Example response
200 OK · Cache-Control: public, max-age=60, s-maxage=300, stale-while-revalidate=600
{
"id": "bs-4",
"legacy_id": "base1-4",
"name": "Charizard",
"number": "4",
"number_sort": 4,
"supertype": "Pokémon",
"hp": 120,
"rarity": "Rare Holo",
"tcgplayer_id": 42382,
"cardmarket_id": 273699,
"index_eur": 561.84,
"last_price_at": "2026-08-26T19:03:20.955Z",
"row_version": 6,
"updated_at": "2026-08-26T17:47:39.900Z",
"set_code": "bs",
"set_name": "Base",
"set_total": 134,
"ptcgo_code": "BS",
"release_date": "1999-01-09",
"print_region": "WEST",
"series": "Base",
"artist_name": "Mitsuhiro Arita",
"artist_slug": "mitsuhiro-arita",
"prices": [
{
"source": "CARDMARKET",
"variant": "LOW",
"basis": "ASKING",
"amount": 599.9,
"currency": "EUR",
"locale": "en",
"condition": "NEAR_MINT",
"printing": null,
"grading": null,
"as_of": "2026-09-01",
"sample_n": null,
"provenance": "Cardmarket"
},
{
"source": "CARDTRADER",
"variant": "LOW",
"basis": "ASKING",
"amount": 1250.64,
"currency": "EUR",
"locale": "en",
"condition": "NEAR_MINT",
"printing": null,
"grading": null,
"as_of": "2026-09-01",
"sample_n": 4,
"provenance": "CardTrader"
},
{
"source": "TCGPLAYER",
"variant": "LOW",
"basis": "GUIDE",
"amount": 510,
"currency": "USD",
"locale": "en",
"condition": null,
"printing": "HOLOFOIL",
"grading": null,
"as_of": "2026-07-30",
"sample_n": null,
"provenance": "TCGplayer"
},
{
"source": "EBAY",
"variant": "MEDIAN_GRADED",
"basis": "ASKING",
"amount": 400,
"currency": "USD",
"locale": "en",
"condition": null,
"printing": null,
"grading": {
"company": "PSA",
"score": "1"
},
"as_of": "2026-08-26",
"sample_n": 7,
"provenance": "eBay"
},
{
"source": "PRICECHARTING",
"variant": "MEDIAN_GRADED",
"basis": "GUIDE",
"amount": 20061.4,
"currency": "USD",
"locale": "en",
"condition": null,
"printing": null,
"grading": {
"company": "PSA",
"score": "10"
},
"as_of": "2026-08-24",
"sample_n": null,
"provenance": "PriceCharting"
},
{
"source": "PTCG_INDEX",
"variant": "INDEX",
"basis": "DERIVED",
"amount": 556.23,
"currency": "EUR",
"locale": "en",
"condition": null,
"printing": null,
"grading": null,
"as_of": "2026-09-02",
"sample_n": 16,
"provenance": "pokemontcgapi composite index"
}
]
}Errors
Every error body carries error.code, error.message and error.request_id. Switch on the code, never on the message.
| Status | Code | When |
|---|---|---|
| 401 | MISSING_API_KEY | No X-Api-Key header and no bearer token on a route that requires one. |
| 401 | INVALID_API_KEY | The key does not match any account. |
| 400 | INVALID_PARAMETER | A query parameter has the wrong type or an unsupported value — a non-integer limit, an unknown lang, an unknown region, a sort key that is not sortable. |
| 404 | CARD_NOT_FOUND | No card with that id. Both our id (bs-4) and the alternate {set}-{number} id (base1-4) resolve here, and so does an id written with the set slug in place of the set code (30th-celebration-001 for 30c-001); each answers with the canonical id. A 404 means none of the three forms matched. |
| 400 | INVALID_SELECT_FIELD | A name in select is not a card field. |
| 400 | INVALID_INCLUDE | A name in include is not a known relation. |
| 429 | QUOTA_EXCEEDED | Trial credits, monthly credits or the daily cap are exhausted, and details says which: daily_cap with retry_after_s is the trial daily cap, which resets at midnight UTC; renews: true with resets_at is the monthly quota of a paid plan; renews: false is the trial allowance, which never comes back. details.next_step carries the plan, prices and owner action, or email verification when it unlocks the full trial. |
| 403 | PLAN_REQUIRED | The feature is outside the plan (movers require Growth; photo recognition has 5 calls after Free email confirmation, then requires Growth), or the account subscription is canceled or suspended. Centering requires Growth or higher; Developer is excluded. After email confirmation the trial includes 5 measure and 5 confirm calls independently; grade and standards use trial credits without separate call counters. Before email confirmation, the message starts with “Confirm your email…”. Follow details.next_step when present. |
| 403 | TRIAL_EXPIRED | The trial has ended: the account is on the trial and its 30 days from signup are over, and this route costs credits. details.trial_expired_at is the date, details.trial_days the length, and details.next_step the owner handoff. Zero-cost routes — /v1/me, /v1/me/usage, the key routes and /v1/billing/checkout — still answer. |
| 403 | CARD_ALLOWANCE_EXCEEDED | The account has retrieved as many distinct cards as its plan covers in the period — 1,000 for the whole trial, 30,000 a month on Developer; Growth and above have no limit — and this request would add new ones. details.cards_used, details.card_allowance and details.new_cards give the numbers, details.resets_at the next period on paid plans, and details.next_step the owner handoff. Only the card routes count; the page that crossed the limit was served in full, and cards already retrieved keep answering. |
The full taxonomy, with what to do about each code, is on the errors page.
Reading the price rows
One row per live series. source says who observed it, basis says what kind of number it is (SOLD a completed sale, ASKING a listing, GUIDE a published guide value, DERIVED ours), and currency is the currency the row was observed in — a single card returns USD and EUR rows side by side, and they are not converted for you.
MEDIAN_GRADED rows carry grading with the company and the score, so a PSA 10 and a CGC 10 stay separate numbers; grading.company is null on a grade band that applies to any grader. Every row carries provenance and as_of; display the provenance wherever you display the price. The sources, their delays and how the composite is built are on price methodology.
The other relations
include takes any comma-separated subset of six names. What each one costs you is one join:
| Relation | Shape | Populated today |
|---|---|---|
prices | Array of price rows | Yes — a dozen or more rows on a well-covered card |
images | Array of image rows | Yes — one FRONT / NORMAL rendition per card |
set | One set object | Yes |
artist | One artist object | Yes, where the card is attributed |
translations | Array of { locale, name } | Yes — en, ja, fr, de, es, it |
legalities | — | Not an accepted value: 400 INVALID_INCLUDE. Format legality is not in the catalogue, and an empty array would look like an answer |
{
"images": [
{
"face": "FRONT",
"size": "NORMAL",
"locale": null,
"url": "https://img.pokemontcgapi.com/media/cards/BASE/4-normal.webp?e=1791763200&s=Qm3vZk1yWq8dP2sL0aXt9c",
"image_source": "rarebit-media",
"width": null,
"height": null
}
],
"set": {
"id": "bs",
"code": "bs",
"slug": "base",
"legacy_id": "base1",
"name": "Base",
"series": "Base",
"region": "WEST",
"release_date": "1999-01-09",
"total": 134,
"printed_total": 102,
"ptcgo_code": "BS",
"symbol_url": null,
"logo_url": "https://img.pokemontcgapi.com/media/sets/BASE/logo-normal.webp?e=1791763200&s=7HgT2wKp0bNxYr4uEv1cLz",
"updated_at": "2026-08-26T17:47:39.900Z"
},
"artist": { "slug": "mitsuhiro-arita", "name": "Mitsuhiro Arita", "card_count": 760 }
}translations returns an array of { locale, name }, one entry per locale that has a name for this card — never every locale, and never a null-filled row for the ones that do not. A card with no entry for the locale you asked for in lang comes back with its English name.
Image dimensions are null
The API returns one rendition per card and does not measure it on ingest, so width and height come back null. Reserve layout space with a fixed aspect ratio rather than reading those two fields.