Pokémon TCG: A Collector's Point of View (part 1 - The Original Series)

This will be the start of a series where I delve into the Pokémon TCG solely from a collector's point of view. I couldn't find a comprehensible resource anywhere, so I figured I might as well put one together myself. Each and every post will focus on a series of expansions (although I have to admit I have no idea who decided that expansions belong in a certain series), starting with the original series in this post.

Oh, and by the way! Should I learn any new details, or simply realize that I have forgotten something, I will go back and edit my old posts instead of writing a new post with out-of-place errata. If something seems incomplete or wrong, give me a shoutout and I'll try to squeeze it in as soon as I have the time.

Where else to start, but from the start? Base Set, with its 102 iconic cards were released in English in January of 1999 by Wizards of the Coast, and although it's quite modest compared to modern expansion, it still introduced Pokémon to the English speaking part of the world. Of course, with it being the first ever set of English Pokémon TCG cards, everything in it was new and exciting, but the cards that got everyone's attention were the first 16 cards - featuring Pokémon on a holographic background.

The cards got four distinct print runs with slight variations between themselves. The first edition print run fittingly enough featured a first edition stamp on the all of the cards. The second print run simply removed the stamp, keeping everything else as it was. At the time, its modern name shadowless wouldn't have made much sense as there still weren't any cards with shadows, but that was about to change in the third print variation. Now, cards featuring a Pokémon (as opposed to Trainer and Energy cards) had a drop shadow around the box containing the illustration of the Pokémon, giving it a more three dimensional look. This is by far the most common variation of the Base Set cards, as it was the variant printed the most times. The fourth and final print run stems from the popularity of the card. The Base Set were released early January in 1999, but there was still a demand for the cards in the year 2000, and that's were the last print variation comes into the picture. Up until now, every card had only had a copyright text ending with "©1999 Wizards." but it had to be updated to "©1999-2000 Wizards." for this last print variation.

The Jungle expansion was released in June of 1999. It added 64 additional cards including 16 holographic ones. Just like Base Set, it was given a limited print run featuring the first edition stamps, before moving along with an unlimited print run maintaining the looks until the end of the print runs. That being said, there still was a variant of the unlimited cards that stood out amongst the rest. Following Base Set, all expansions had a symbol denoting which expansion the cards were a part of. This symbol was forgotten on the holographic cards of the first print of the Jungle cards, giving us the no symbol Jungle error cards. It was later corrected and printed as supposed to on the following print runs.

Following Jungle, the Fossil expansion was released in October of 1999. Continuing the pattern, there was a first edition print run and an unlimited one. Apart from expanding the game with 62 new cards (of which 15 were holographic), it didn't really add anything new from a collector's point of view. There is one thing worth mentioning however. So far, all holographic cards had been printed with a star shaped pattern in the background and would keep that until the Base Set 2 expansion, but whether by mistake or intentionally, there are at least some holographic cards from the Fossil expansion that received the cosmos foil as well.

Come February 2000, a new expansion saw daylight. Base Set 2 was a set that consisted of reprints from the previously released cards. It didn't include reprints for all of the cards, but it did manage to take the first place when it comes to the number of cards, clocking in at 130 cards. Like previously mentioned, this time the holographic cards got a new background dubbed the cosmos foil. But let's be honest: this was an expansion for players, and not for collectors.

Wizards of the Coast did get a bit creative for the Team Rocket expansion that they released in April of 2000. For the first time, a card not released in Japan made its way to the international cards. And not only that, the card was given a number higher than the official card count - 83/82 - thereby making it the first ever secret rare card! One other thing worth mentioning is that the card Here Comes Team Rocket! featured Jessie, James and Meowth from the anime.

In the Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge expansions, released in August of 2000 and October of 2000 respectively, the TCG introduced the concept of owner's Pokémon. The expansions were built around the gym leaders from the Kanto region. Other than featuring them in their own holographic Trainer cards, the expansion also include Pokémon belonging to those gym leaders. For instance, Blaine's Tauros. Worth noting is that not all of the gym leaders' Pokémon are used by them in the games, like Blaine's Tauros illustrates.

All in all, here's the number of cards of each type that I deem particularly collectable (of course, I think all of them are, but this is just the crème de la crème):

Please note that I've counted some cards in multiple categories (i.e. Dark Raichu is both a holographic and a secret rare).