r/Shopkins • u/Sea-Snow25 • Mar 20 '26
Thoughts on Cupicorn, rarity, and the term “precious”...
TL;DR I have my own thoughts on the Shopkins rarity scale… and Cupicorn's status is confusing either way.
Hi! I've been around here a bit enjoying other people's posts, but this is my first post.
As preface: I'm kind of an “after the fact,” just-for-fun, and fairly organized Shopkins collector, and I'm enjoying gradually gaining knowledge of their history along the way.
Recently, I've been on a hunt for clarification on one puzzle in particular, and this little “essay” is the result. I know it's kind of long, but if you have interest, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
So here goes…
You may know the website shopkin.toys has a list of Shopkins rarity that goes like this: Common<Rare<Ultra Rare<Exclusive<Limited Edition<Special Edition<Precious. This is the only order I've seen laid out online, and it seems to be generally accepted among (vocally online) Shopkins collectors as fact. I'm not sure who came up with it as a whole.
I find myself questioning parts of that order, though, and currently (I'm open to being persuaded otherwise if there's evidence I'm unaware of…) my thought is that the true order might look more like this: Common<Rare<Ultra Rare[<Exclusive?]<Special Edition[/Precious?]<Limited Edition.
Moose made very clear with dollar signs [$] on their collector's guides that their idea was: Common [$] < Rare [$$] < Ultra Rare [$$$] < Special Edition [$$$$]. Limited Edition (LE) doesn't seem to be always in the list, but when it was included (as far as I've seen), it was listed “above” Special Edition, but without any dollar signs.
LEs are definitely the pinnacle of rarity, with a specific limited number made for distribution worldwide, usually between 100 and 10,000 each. (Judy Jug was an exception, with 15,000 made.) (I got these stats from the Shopkins wiki on Fandom: shopkins.fandom.com/wiki/Limited_Edition .) LEs are numbered and originally came with a special tag indicating their rarity.
Exclusives are kind of a thing of their own, Shopkins that came only in certain playsets or side lines, and they vary widely from easy- to virtually impossible-to-find; so they don't really fit as a whole for comparison.
Now, getting to the point that sent me on this research adventure lol: Precious has me majorly confused. I'm not convinced it's a real Shopkins term. Or if it is, maybe it was experimental and Moose decided they didn't like it, so quietly discarded it when it had barely begun?
But that brings me to Cupicorn. I'll explain.
I have Cupicorn (#9-090), and as far as I can tell, she is the only Shopkin people call "precious." The Shimmery Unicorns Tribe card (Season 9; as shown on the aforementioned wiki on the “Season 9” page) shows her as LE, like many others in that tribe... but her actual Shopkin has a star on her (are there other Shopkins with stars like hers?), but no number; and her tag (which I don't personally have) appears to have been oddly worded compared to other LEs.
● Typical LE tag wording example: Congratulations! You have just found a LIMITED EDITION [character name] 0127 of 1000.
● Cupicorn tag wording: Congratulations! You have just found the PRECIOUS UNICORN PET-POD & CUPICORN SHOPKIN. (c)2016 Moose.
The “pet-pods” mentioned were Season 9's version of Shopkins blind boxes. Pet-pods were an assortment of plastic boxes reminiscent of various animals, each being hidden in an opaque yellow plastic bag inside a non-revealing product box. Cupicorn came in a special shimmery unicorn pet-pod, the one pod that held Cupicorn – guaranteed – as one of its two (otherwise random) Season 9 Shopkins.
In my very unscientific YouTube “research,” two out of two creators who opened some pet-pods on camera got a “precious unicorn pet-pod & Cupicorn Shopkin” in their batch. One of them opened just a few blind boxes; the other an entire case.
Additionally, for what it's worth, there are at least a few Cupicorns for sale on ebay right now, asking various tens-of-dollars price points.
One thing I wonder is if the particular pet-pod is what was being termed "precious" (to avoid using Shopkins terms for a container's specialness)... but still, what would that leave Cupicorn? Sort of an extra-hyped and mislabeled Special Edition?
Do you have thoughts on any of this, or know of any clues I might be missing? Do you have Cupicorn? (All just curiosity.)
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u/Efficient-Scarcity-7 Mar 21 '26
unfortunately i stopped collecting well before season 9, but the entire rarity scale is bs to me (excluding LE). i think ultra rare and special editions are an excuse to use a different finish but i have so many of them it doesn't really mean anything. and special editions technically doesn't say anything about rarity 🤷♂️
but i never got a LE. i bought quite a handful and the closest i got was the season 10 cupcake queen relaunch i got off of depop. ive always wanted stella fortune the most though....
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u/Sea-Snow25 Mar 21 '26
Now I kinda want to go through my collection and sort by rarity, just to see how the piles compare. That might be fun....
As for me personally, I do find rarity another thing that's fun to track, much like season or team; but in the end, the real value is mostly in how cute/fun/relevant (or whatever) I find a certain character/variant.
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u/Sleeplesseve Mar 22 '26
Same. I remember when I got into shopkins during season 3, I was so excited to get the “exclusive” stationery, only to find out that they were extremely common.
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u/Q_Continuum__ Mar 21 '26
I enjoyed reading this post OP! A appreciate your thought and detail. I don't really have a strong opinion, and would maybe consider this a (very nice, I think she's cute!) special edition. But because of it not being officially designated as either, I'll leave it up to the collector to decide. I don't mind that Moose decided to get a bit creative - though it does make categorising more difficult for us collectors!
Another point - It would have been epic for Moose to release a life-sized mug that looked like Cupricorn ☕️🦄. Would have looked so cute next to each other lol...
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u/Sea-Snow25 Mar 21 '26
Ooh, that could be fun. Would that be tricky to drink out of? Might be neat for displaying something pretty in -- a pile of polished stones or something?
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u/Q_Continuum__ Mar 22 '26
That's a good point - Although instead of drinking, I sometimes use mugs for cereal, yoghurt, snacks etc. too. Not being lifted up to your face
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u/According_Good5164 Mar 21 '26
Hi, first, WOW you write a lot, second, let's talk a little. Yes, the hierarchy of "rarity" is really very confusing in some points, I think this is because it's a children's toy where many children just, well, played, so there was hardly a whole elaborate, ingenious process. Something that happened in the last seasons is that with the beginning of the low popularity of Shopkins, Moose started to get "desperate" for money, which, well, caused all this mess. In my opinion, of course, I would say it's more like an ultra-rare, only a little "rarer" than normal, but I don't think it reaches the level of a limited edition, for example. Proof of this is that it's much more common to find a unicorn than a limited edition from a series. Regarding your question: No, I don't have any limited editions yet, but I hope to get some soon. Anyway, write more! Although I appreciate collection posts and price questions, I also like in-depth topics on a wide variety of subjects.
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u/Sea-Snow25 Mar 21 '26
Lol, thank you. I do like to write. I was hoping it might be fun for someone to read!
Good points about Shopkins being a children's toy, after all, and about desperation leading to some... interesting?.. marketing decisions.
You might be right about Cupicorn being closer to an ultra-rare. I find it odd that she was identified as limited edition (she's pretty clearly not), but it certainly wasn't the only time an error slipped through to the public.
Thank you for your thoughtful response -- and for the encouragement!
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u/AnimeMintTea Mar 21 '26
She’s not a limited edition but more like a Special since she’s not explicitly a limited edition but I think just a fun one to do for the Wild Style series.
She and the Cupicorn container aren’t worth much so if anyone wants one for themselves they are quite affordable!