A Suicune Pokemon card from the old-back years is a different object from every Suicune printed since. The スイクン of Pokémon Card neo Expansion Pack “Awakening Legends” (neo3) belongs to the set released in Japan on Thursday, November 23, 2000, the set that carries Entei, Raikou and Suicune together. This guide places the three old-back beasts, shows which of them we list, and says plainly which numbers our sources do not give.
The old-back Suicune and the old-back Entei LV.24 below are each a PSA 10 back order on our site. There is no old-back Raikou listing, and the guide treats that gap as part of the story rather than hiding it. Figures convert at ¥154/USD, approximate.
- Awakening Legends (Japanese name; the English counterpart is Neo Revelation) released on Thursday, November 23, 2000. Our legendary beasts guide records Entei, Raikou and Suicune in it, illustrated by Ken Sugimori, and records them as absent from Neo Genesis.
- We list an old-back Suicune [neo3 No.245] as a PSA 10 back order at ¥252,606 (~$1,640) and an Entei LV.24 [PRMF-3 No.244] from Premium File 3 at ¥66,340 (~$431).
- No old-back Raikou listing exists on our site, and the Japanese card numbers of the Awakening Legends trio are not stated in our sources.
What “Old Back” Means on a Suicune Card
“Old Back” is a description of the card back, not of the front. Our Japanese old-back guide dates the old back from the October 1996 launch (Media Factory) until Pokemon VS on Thursday, July 19, 2001. In that window every Japanese card shared one back design, and the guide lists the marks: the text ポケットモンスターカードゲーム, a copyright line at the bottom, and a separate red Poke Ball at the top.
One consequence matters for this trio. The same guide states that an Old Back card never carries a 1ED stamp. A 1st Edition mark on a beast card therefore points to a different era; our own Raikou :1ED [e4 039/088] listing (an e-series 1st Edition print from Expansion Pack Vol.4 “Split Earth”), covered below, is from a later era. The e-series is generally not old back either, per our e-reader guide.
The full explanation of the format, with the premium-file release dates, is in our Japanese old-back Pokemon cards guide. This article is the Entei, Raikou and Suicune slice of it.
Awakening Legends: The Set With All Three Beasts
Awakening Legends is the Japanese name; Neo Revelation is the English counterpart, which our legendary beasts guide dates to 2001. The Japanese release date in our sources is Thursday, November 23, 2000. The same guide records that none of the three beasts is in Neo Genesis, so Awakening Legends is the expansion where a collector looks for them.
The table gives the numbering our legendary beasts guide prints. These are English Neo Revelation numbers; the Japanese numbers for the same cards are not in our sources, and the table does not guess them.
| Pokémon | Rare Holo (English numbering) | Rare (English numbering) | HP | Type | Illustrator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entei | #6/64 | #17/64 | 80 | Fire | Ken Sugimori |
| Raikou | #13/64 | #22/64 | 80 | Lightning | Ken Sugimori |
| Suicune | #14/64 | #27/64 | 70 | Water | Ken Sugimori |
The guide adds one detail about the artwork: the Raikou Rare Holo shares a single illustrated scene with the Entei and Suicune Rare Holos. Read side by side, the three holographic cards form one picture, which is a useful check when you are trying to place a loose beast card.
Where the three come from
Our legendary beasts guide traces the trio to Pokemon Gold & Silver (1999). Lightning struck the Brass Tower 150 years before the games’ events and killed three unnamed Pokémon; Ho-Oh revived them, and the Burned Tower links flame, thunder and rain to Entei (Fire), Raikou (Lightning) and Suicune (Water). That origin is why the three are collected as a set, and why a trademark report about fire, lightning and aurora names has drawn attention to them (more on that near the end).
Our Old-Back Suicune: neo3 No.245
The Suicune on our site is named “PSA10 Suicune : Old Back [neo3 No.245] (Pokemon Card neo Expansion Pack “Awakening Legends”)”. It is offered as a PSA 10 back order at ¥252,606 (~$1,640) — sourced to order; the product page shows the current terms.
Read the listing name field by field:
| Part of the name | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| PSA10 | The grade named on our listing; the listing is a PSA 10 back order |
| Old Back | The card has the pre-July 19, 2001 back design described above |
| neo3 | The set code our listing uses, which it names “Awakening Legends” |
| No.245 | The number printed on the card; see the note below on what kind of number it is |
What “No.245” most likely is
The official card database prints a “No.” next to the Pokémon category line on modern cards, and for Suicune that number is 245 (オーロラポケモン, “Aurora Pokémon”), for Entei 244 (かざんポケモン) and for Raikou 243 (いかずちポケモン). The old-back listing numbers match: Suicune No.245 here, Entei No.244 on the Premium File 3 card below. Our sources do not say what the old-back “No.” means, so treat the match as an observation, not a rule. It points to a Pokédex-style number rather than a position inside a set, which is also why the same kind of number appears on a Celebi PRMF-3 card at No.251 in our old-back guide.
To see that numbering on a modern card, compare the Suicune S4a 033/190 below. It is a plain Basic Suicune illustrated by so-taro, and the database shows No.245 on it as well.
Entei LV.24 and Premium File 3 (PRMF-3 No.244)
The Entei on our site is not from Awakening Legends itself. It is “PSA10 Entei LV.24 : Old Back [PRMF-3 No.244] (Pokemon Card neo “Premium File 3″)”, a card from the third neo Premium File. It is offered as a PSA 10 back order at ¥66,340 (~$431) — sourced to order; the product page shows the current terms.
Our old-back guide lays out the three neo Premium Files, and Entei appears in two of them:
| Premium File | Release (per our old-back guide) | Contents named in our guide |
|---|---|---|
| neo Premium File 1 | Friday, December 10, 1999 | Not detailed in our sources |
| neo Premium File 2 | Saturday, July 8, 2000 (movie) / Saturday, August 5, 2000 (general) | Nine Cosmos Reverse Holofoil cards including Entei, tied to the film Spell of the Unown: Entei; named cards are Charizard, Entei, Pichu, Espeon, three Unown (E, N, O), Umbreon and Eevee |
| neo Premium File 3 | Thursday, November 23, 2000 | Nine legendary-focused cards, one per card type, including Lugia, Ho-Oh, Entei, Raikou and Suicune |
Two points follow. First, Premium File 3 went on sale on the same day as Awakening Legends, so Thursday, November 23, 2000 carries two sets of beast cards: the expansion’s Rare Holos and Rares, and the Premium File’s one-per-type promo selection. Second, Premium File 3 contains Raikou and Suicune as well as Entei, but their card numbers are not stated anywhere in our sources. We will not infer them from the Entei number.
Do not confuse it with the PokePark Premium File
Our catalogue also lists “PSA10 Entei [PCG 001/009] (PokePark Premium File “Blue Sheet”)”, offered as a PSA 10 back order at ¥239,200 (~$1,553). That is a different product with a different numbering system, and the year, rarity and illustrator are not stated in our sources. The word “Premium File” appears in both names, which is the only link between them.
Raikou: The Missing Old-Back Listing
There is no old-back Raikou on our site. Our sources record Raikou in Awakening Legends (Rare Holo #13/64 and Rare #22/64 in English numbering, HP 80, Lightning) and in Premium File 3, but give neither a Japanese card number nor a price for either. What we do list for Raikou is a different card: “PSA10 Raikou :1ED [e4 039/088] (Expansion Pack Vol.4 “Split Earth”)”, offered as a PSA 10 back order at ¥264,600 (~$1,718). It belongs to the e-series, a later era, and its illustrator and rarity are not stated in our sources.
The table separates what the sources establish from what they leave open, so you can see where an old-back Raikou search would have to start.
| Question | Entei | Raikou | Suicune |
|---|---|---|---|
| In Awakening Legends (English numbering)? | Yes, #6/64 and #17/64 | Yes, #13/64 and #22/64 | Yes, #14/64 and #27/64 |
| In Premium File 3? | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Japanese Awakening Legends card number in our sources? | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Premium File 3 number in our sources? | PRMF-3 No.244 | Not stated | Not stated |
| Old-back listing on our site? | Entei LV.24 [PRMF-3 No.244] | None | Suicune [neo3 No.245] |
If you need a specific old-back Raikou, sourcing requests for a specific card go through Quick Order.
After Old Back: Where the Trio Goes Next
The beasts keep returning in later eras, and the later cards are easy to mix up with the neo ones. The table lists the stops our sources document, with the listing we carry where there is one.
| Era | Date (per our guides) | Beast cards | Our listing |
|---|---|---|---|
| e-series (e1 to e5) | Card e Reader launched in Japan on Saturday, December 1, 2001; e1 released the same day | Raikou e4 039/088, 1st Edition | PSA 10 back order, ¥264,600 (~$1,718) |
| PCG4 “Golden Sky, Silvery Ocean” | Friday, April 8, 2005 | Gold Star trio: Entei JP 019/106, Raikou JP 039/106, Suicune JP 032/106, illustrator Masakazu Fukuda | Entei 1ED [PCG4 019/106]: PSA 10 back order, ¥2,570,400 (~$16,691) |
| HGSS LEGEND combos (Reviving Legends) | Thursday, February 11, 2010 | Three two-card LEGEND pairs, L2-B 063 to 068/080, Shinji Higuchi (official database) | None |
| Official database era (2007 onward) | Entries from the 2007 Diamond & Pearl era to 2026 | 25 Suicune entries in the official database | See our Suicune listings below |
On the Gold Star row, the 019/106 print our listing carries matches the Gold Star Entei by number and set name, so the table says “the 019/106 print” rather than naming a rarity symbol that the listing name does not show. Our Suicune Japanese cards guide picks up the database-era Suicune cards, and the Gold Star prints have their own pages in Suicune Gold Star: Japanese Card Guide and Gold Star Entei, Raikou and Suicune.
For the LEGEND pairs, the official database holds all three. These pairs are described in Entei, Raikou & Suicune: Card Value Guide, and our Pokémon LEGEND cards guide covers the LEGEND format in general.
S4a is the set of the plain Suicune 033/190 shown above and of the Suicune 221/190 print (Kagemaru Himeno) in the official database. It is a sealed-box route to the modern Suicune prints, not to the old-back ones.
How to Identify Which Print You Hold
If a loose beast card is in front of you, work through the clues in this order. None of them is a statement about condition or originality; they only place the card in an era.
| What the card shows | Where it points |
|---|---|
| The old red-Poke-Ball back with ポケットモンスターカードゲーム | An Old Back card, released before July 19, 2001 |
| A 1ED stamp | Not an Old Back card; a later 1st Edition print such as the e-series Raikou |
| A “No.” value after the Pokémon name (244, 245, 243) | The Pokédex-style number seen on our old-back listings and on modern database entries |
| LV. followed by a number (for example LV.24 on the Entei) | A level mark. It appears on the neo-era Entei LV.24 listing and also on Diamond & Pearl entries in the official database, so combine it with the back design and the set mark |
| A number such as 019/106, 039/106 or 032/106 | The 2005 PCG4 “Golden Sky, Silvery Ocean” prints, not a neo card |
| A “上” or “下” label and the word 伝説 | One half of a LEGEND pair, from 2010 |
For the Premium File 3 cards in particular, the listing designation “PRMF-3” and the product name are what separate them from the Awakening Legends expansion cards, since both date to Thursday, November 23, 2000.
Why Suicune Is in the News
On October 29, 2026 premium.gamepedia.jp and PokeGuardian reported a Japanese trademark filing for 「オーロラの波紋」, which collectors read as a possible Suicune set; nothing is announced. Our Suicune trademark explainer explains what is confirmed and what is not.
Where to Buy Suicune and Entei Cards from Japan
The old-back cards on our site are PSA 10 back orders, sourced to order; the product page shows the current terms for each.
- Suicune, Old Back [neo3 No.245]: back order at ¥252,606 (~$1,640).
- Entei LV.24, Old Back [PRMF-3 No.244]: back order at ¥66,340 (~$431).
- A sealed box with modern Suicune prints: the S4A-Shiny Star V booster box at ¥21,232 (~$138).
Browse the full card list, or send a request for a specific old-back card through Quick Order. For the wider context of how these cards connect to the 2027 reports, see our ex★ and 2027 trademarks round-up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which set has the old-back Suicune?
Our listing names it as Pokémon Card neo Expansion Pack “Awakening Legends” (neo3), released in Japan on Thursday, November 23, 2000. Our legendary beasts guide records Suicune in that set as a Rare Holo #14/64 and a Rare #27/64 in English Neo Revelation numbering, and records it as absent from Neo Genesis.
What does “No.245” mean on the old-back Suicune?
Our sources do not define it. It matches the No.245 that the official database prints on modern Suicune cards, and our Entei listing’s No.244 and a Celebi No.251 follow the same pattern, so it looks like a Pokédex-style number rather than a set position.
Is there an old-back Raikou listing?
No. Raikou is recorded in Awakening Legends and in Premium File 3, but we have no old-back Raikou listing and our sources give no Japanese card number for it. The Raikou we list is the e-series 1st Edition e4 039/088, a different card.
What is in neo Premium File 3?
Our old-back guide describes Premium File 3 as released on Thursday, November 23, 2000, with nine legendary-focused cards, one per card type, including Lugia, Ho-Oh, Entei, Raikou and Suicune. Our Entei LV.24 listing is its PRMF-3 No.244 card.
How much is the old-back Suicune listed at?
It is offered as a PSA 10 back order at ¥252,606 (~$1,640), sourced to order. The product page shows the current terms.
How do I ask for an old-back card you do not list?
Sourcing requests for a specific card go through Quick Order at samuraiswordtokyo.com/#quick-order. The product page of each listing shows the current terms.
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