POKEMON Cards, Explain Them Please...

[spongefactor]

My son wants to sell some of his Pokemon cards, apparently some are rare and valuable. Problem is he's only 8 and doesn't really know much about them, he just collects them.
I don't want to understand how to play, I just wanty some idea about what the signs on them mean. Some are common, uncommon etc, I think you can tell be looking at it what it is, if so, how?
I've had a look on eBay and I think I can guess that 'shiny' and 'holo' and the same, and reverse holo is where the card is shiny all over except for the picture. Am I correct so far, and can anyone expand on that, just so I can describe them accurately.
I've looked on some trading card forums and the like but to be honest I'm not sure what language they speak!

[Speshal]

No idea how accurate this is but seems pretty comprehensive -

http://pocketmonsters.org.uk/buypokemoncardshere.htm

There's a couple of sites that list rare defects with cards but most are in $ so I don't know if it translates as well in £ and may be US specific -

http://www.pojo.com/priceguide/usErrorCards.html

[spongefactor]

There's some interesting stuff there, cheers.

[evilsatan]

They were never about playing with them, collecting them was addictive wen I was younger. The amount of money I wasted on them is insane.

Per pack you will get one rare card, x amount of mediums, and a few commons. Some cards are rarer than others, for example a shop in my local town sold Charizard (rarest card) for £18-20!!

[CominAtcha]

Hmmm. I used to work for the company that made these and have shit loads. Wonder if I could make a bob or two......

[Greyfox]

They were never about playing with them, collecting them was addictive wen I was younger. The amount of money I wasted on them is insane.

Per pack you will get one rare card, x amount of mediums, and a few commons. Some cards are rarer than others, for example a shop in my local town sold Charizard (rarest card) for £18-20!!

Yer and if you have a charizard 1st edition that can go for £50+

I still have all my pokemon cards i collected from when i was little. Got the whole basic collection, rekon i could make a fair bit of money if i sold them all