January 9th, 1999 was the official release date for the 1st English Pokemon set. The 1st Edition Base set needs no introduction; it is simply the set. 1st Edition Base contains the most popular and most valuable set card: Charizard, along with numerous heavy hitters, we see you Blastoise! 1st Ed Base also boasts the most comprehensive pop report for any set.
The set has grown tremendously both in monetary and historic value. Each card has its own specific set of challenges to obtain. Each card has its own specific identity.
There are so many historic cards, ranging from the most popular Charizard, to the fan favorite Caterpie:
Memes aside, Caterpie is actually one of the more difficult common cards to grade.
Looking back at the past 20 years, it is astonishing how this set has evolved. The release of the Pokemon TCG in English propelled the hobby to where it is today. That propulsion is captured within the 1st Ed Base set!
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Feel free to share your favorite Base set cards, or cards you remember pulling. The first card I pulled in 1999 was Electrode. It was funny because I didn’t get a voltorb for ages, and still to this day think voltrob is “rare”, as it took me much longer to obtain.
My first pokemon cards were free duplicates of non-holos from base set from friends who had already started to fill their binders. I was 11 at the time. I didn’t care that I had a few light played commons, I thought it was so cool. My favorite part was how excited every kid in my neighborhood was.
Once I finally convinced my mom, I got my first three unlimited packs from Media Play. The very first pack I opened had a Blastoise holo! I felt like I had won the lottery pulling that beast of a card, couldn’t wait to show my friends.
My friends and I never played, but collecting and trading was all we did for months until a lot of my friends’ parents put a stop to the madness, sadly, and stopped purchasing cards for their kids. I continued on collecting through Team Rocket though, but stopped in middle school.
I can’t recall anything from my childhood that caused the uproar quite that base set did. It was like the world stopped and all anyone cared about for awhile was getting charizard.
I remember my first two Pokemon cards being a shadowless Charmander and Charmeleon, which one of my best friends at the time gave me from his starter deck. I didn’t know anything about Pokemon other than it was this new popular thing that suddenly existed and I was very proud of the two cards I had received. Every week afterwards, I remember bugging my parents to buy a couple packs for me when KB Toys had them in stock. I never had any luck with Holos though. I was always plagued by Item Finders and Impostor Professor Oaks, which I actually still have in my collection today.
If I had to pick a favorite base card today, it would actually be shadowless Caterpie, hah. I love the trippy looking green and yellow swirl, and the entire card as a whole has a lot of eye appeal. In the show, it was the first Pokemon Ash caught, evolved, and said goodbye to. To me, Caterpie had a very special storyline and I think about it when I see that card.
I still remember when i pulled by Base Charizard from a pack, down the local news agents buying the pack for ÂŁ6 i think it was, i ripped that pack open on the way home and there it was. The excitement and joy was exhilarating, i remember trying to keep it from being damaged by putting it back in the pack in between the cards. Sadly it has got mixed up with all the other zards but its still somewhere in one of them.
I was like 8 or 9 when Base Set was released. There was one hobby store in the mall that sold packs before any other shops got some so naturally there was a line 30 people deep from open to close. My mom would take me and my brothers and we would have to wait in line to buy one pack each before getting back in line for more. I think it was $5 per pack (can you imagine paying that now?). Anyways, in that one trip I ended up pulling a 1st Edition Alakazam, Raichu, Poliwrath, and Venusaur.
The Zap! theme deck was my first Pokemon TCG product. I still have the Mewtwo, which can be identified from a mile away by a very deep and long scratch on the holo illustration. I am not sure what my first base booster pack contained, I just remember getting a lot of rare trainer cards. We actually played the card game at my school and it was quite competitive for a year or so and a ton of fun. Therefore I always found it odd when most people say that they never played with the cards.
Slightly off topic, did Magic the Gathering copy holofoil cards from Pokemon? The first MtG set that contained holofoil cards was Urza’s Legazy, released February 15 1999. Also note that Japanese Pokemon cards came out roughly 2 years earlier.
Here are the two most feared and hated cards in probably the entire history of the Pokemon TCG.
Wow, 20 years has flown by. I got a nice binder collection going in 99. Then that summer I lost it while visiting my Aunt. Tears were shed but I had to start over. That year my favorite card I pulled was Venusaur. Here it is. Happy 20th English base set.
My first exposure to the base set came many many years ago when one of my childhood buddies opened up a few base set boosters. I was in awe at what cards he was pulling and I still remember till this day that i want the Squirtle/wartortle/ blastoise evolutionary line from him. I ended up trading him a bunch of yugioh cards for his Mewtwo, Squirtle, Wartortle. He also through in a free caterpie, but I couldnt get him to trade Blastoise! And those in fact were my first pokemon cards!
My first memory of base set was of a kid bringing a starter deck to school and us battling after class. The first rare I pulled from a pack was a Pokemon Breeder. I never bought that many cards as a kid and also had some pretty poor luck with packs; I think the only holo I ever pulled from a base set pack was a Hitmonchan. Somehow I eventually ended up with most of the base set, though. I have no recollection of how that happened–I guess I was good at ripping other kids off, and maybe I traded some sports cards for them as well. I do remember once trading a kid a Charizard for his six Mewtwos and six Machamps because he was annoying and I just wanted him to leave me alone.
Sadly, I don’t have any of the cards I had as a kid anymore because I gave them to my friend’s little brother like 15 years ago. But one of my best friends (who hasn’t collected cards since the days of base set) still has a shadowless Venusaur that I got him for his birthday (for $14). I also still have my wife’s and my brother-in-law’s cards from their youth.
I never opened any base boosters but I had all the theme decks (and still do) … I liked mewtwo and gyarados, I was always salty that blackout had hitmonchan as the holo and not blastoise because aside from gengar blastoise is my fav.
When I went back and looked through my old decks recently I found the ninetales was shadowless which was pretty cool … too bad it’s beat to hell
I went to the local flee market with my mom and she bought me 2 packs and the base set starter deck. I no longer have the unlimited Machamp, but I do have an upgraded mint sealed shadowless one lol
Oddly enough, I recall seeing the triangle error packs for sale once upon a time and not wanting them because they looked weird.
I remember my first purchase was the 2 player starter box (the one that came with a jungle booster and jungle theme deck) from Toys R Us. I got a holo Venomoth from that pack. I’d end up buying a lot of booster packs from Software Etc (who would later be bought up by GameStop/EB Games). I also bought a lot of 1st edition Neo booster packs from a Wizards of the Coast store in the mall. According to Wikipedia there weren’t too many of those.
Going 20 years strong! This is awesome. I still remember my first base packs. Was late 1999 or early 2000. My dad took me and my two cousins to get packs at our cardshop. We each got two packs and opened them in the back of his K5 blazer on the way home. In each pack I pulled a holo Chansey!! My cousin started crying because he didn’t get a holo and my dad made me share 1 of my chansey lol. Great memories I will never forget.
Man, 20 years already - can’t believe how time flew. A coworker told me about the Pokemon cards that were due to come out in a few weeks after I told him that my girlfriend liked the show (I did too) but she wanted to know the characters’ names as the rap was too fast/incomplete. He told me that it was going to be also a playable game like Magic but I had no idea. I just had the occasional basketball and comic cards but had stopped buying years before that time.
When he told me they came out, I went to the local store and bought up packs (had a job and lived at home w/ parents) so had disposable income. Bought a 1st ed box and started sorting to get the complete set. Learned the game and my girlfriend and I spent much time playing. We even went to the pokemon tour they had going across the country so we took pictures with the pikachu VW bug, received the demo packs, and bought more packs. At this time, the cards were in short supply so I learned about the internet and how I can order online. I bought a couple more boxes when I could locally and we were both hooked.
I never expected it would be as desirable all these years. So glad I took care of my cards.
My second pack ever was an (English again) unlimited edition Jungle pack. That one contained a Jolteon (my favorite artwork of the set), which I still have to this day. As a kid I reorganized my collection pretty often however and didn’t had any sleeves, so all cards from my youth are in lightly played or worse, lol. xD Luckily I never had any 1st edition Base Set Charizards, so I don’t have to curse my younger self for not taking better care of his cards.
My younger self would be ecstatic to know that my older self is even more fanatical about Pokemon than I was back then.
I remember I was 7 when they launched here in the UK, I still remember opening my first Base Set booster pack, I even recall that it was a Blastoise art pack and I pulled a holo Poliwrath, from that moment I was totally hooked and so excited to find and collect all of the cards, not just to own them, but to see the artwork, that sense of discovery was incredibly rewarding.
I moved to Sweden when I was 9, and while the hype had died down by that point my interest never wavered, could you imagine my surprise when I got there that all the other kids there were still mad about it? This was around when Neo series dropped, I would always bug my parents to buy me as many packs as possible and I used to give out all my duplicates to make new friends more easily, we all used to play this game as well where one person would throw cards like a frisbee and we’d all go mad trying to catch them, good times!
20 years down the line, I’m still incredibly enthusiastic about completing sets, that sense of discovery never went away, while the majority of modern sets don’t quite do the same for me I still enjoy them very much and having a community of people here who have wonderful and unique experiences with Pokemon really reinforces my love for the series. E4 is extremely validating.
I was 4 years old when I got my first pack of steam siege base set. The first holo I pulled was full art mega steelix ex Blastoise.
I remember opening more jungle than any other set in the early wotc days. The artwork burned into my mind as I religiously drew my own Pokemon and copied detailed animals and dinosaurs from scientific drawings.
I loved to draw when I was little. I stopped when I was 13, should try hunting for old sketchbooks when I get a chance.
When I was 7 I opened a lot of e-series and when I was 9 I tried to complete ex dragon and ex firered leafgreen by saving up pocket money. I got 3 of the ex dragon exs, dragonite, muk and golem (still have them) but I only got Zard and Electrode from Firered Leafgreen. They were all suprisingly mint for being in the hands of a 9 year old but I always took good care of my stuff when I was little. Organised things meticulously.
I stopped collecting until I was about 20, I was deep into yugioh but I’d buy Pokemon packs every now and then just for shits and giggles.
Should have kept buying for another 2 years when I was little and I might have ended up with mint gold stars
Happy 20th English base set.
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