Did not know that - great info as always
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I corrected my post:
it says second print as well as Jungle
Sorry for the mix up everyone!
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Hey there,
the guide was not published by Media Factory. The imprint states “T2 Publishing Co., Ltd.” or 株式会社ティーツー出版 in Japanese as publisher. However, I’m pretty sure that Media Factory was involved in the editing process.
Please refer to the picture below:
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Hey there,
I bought mine for about 500 Yen from Mercari. They pop up once in a while and you really shouldn’t pay much more for them. Just try to search ポケモンカード：必勝大作戦. Unfortunately only the second guide is available for a reasonable price at the moment. But patience should solve the problem.
Kind regards from Germany
Martin
Addition:
For all those who would like to watch a video of an opening of a first edition Japanese starter deck, please refer to the following two youtube videos which are very underrated in my opinion:
Opening of the Pokemon Card Gift Pack: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ujr8z_1Wvs
Opening of the actual first edition starter deck: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y78j4GzPq10
Unfortunately the blog of the person opening the packs in the video seems to be down by now. Two years ago I gathered some very helpful information about the no rarity cards there and posted a short summary under one Video of smpratte (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-L0dVOV7I8&t=151s):
"According to this blog ( choco7maron.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-156.html ) cards without rarity symbol can be found in the very first printing of the starter deck 1996.10-1997.5 and in some (not all!) of the “short” boosters from the base set. Overall there seem to exist at least four (evt. five) different types of the base set starter deck. Quite interesting thing.
Correction: There seem to exist six different types of the first starter deck and you can distinguish them by the wrapping and the printed text ( choco7maron.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-257.html ). Cards without rarity symbol can only be found in the very first printing. This means a double layer of wrapping and this sentence printed on the back: “１箱の中味は、どれも同じではありません。”. A photo can be found here: blog-imgs-117.fc2.com/c/h/o/choco7maron/DIqrM8KVoAAAhrI.jpg
One further addition: Another suggestion is that there could be a similarity to the preconstructed theme decks of the gym series. They were regularly sold without rarity symbol. A few people argue that this could be the same case with the “Base set gift box” (ポケットモンスターカードゲームギフトパック) of December 1996. If you follow the argumentation of the person who wrote the above mentioned blog, every of this gift boxes contains only cards without rarity symbol."
Of course, the article by the person who posted the two videos also mentioned basic differences of the packs like the different postal code (5 instead of 7 numbers) etc.
Finally, if you would like to see a German Pokemon fan freeking out about a regular Japanese base set starter deck containing a Mewtwo, here is a video - to much talking I guess - I posted about 8 years ago when you could get the starter decks for 10 to 15 bucks. How I wish to could turn back time…
Kind regards from Germany
Martin
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This is entirely my opinion but I feel like the thing the no rarity symbol set has going for it is that it (was once) shrouded in mystery and people like to paint a picture in their heads of how things came to be. Ruining that mystery by exposing the source is going to be something people reject to find out about because they don’t want to believe it.
It’s been easily-accessible public knowledge for at least 5 years where no rarity cards come from and most of the high value sales we’ve seen recently are from people who used that knowledge to purchase the decks for themselves to open - the people buying them on the other hand are the people who likely don’t know where they originate and don’t want to know, either.
This new information is really interesting, even more so that it appears to be from an article discussing how to not make bad Pokémon trades - don’t trade your rarity symbol base set cards for no rarity symbol base set cards because the latter is rarer. Almost as if it was common knowledge on the playground at the time.
I feel like this would be on par with an English equivalent like Pojo labelling thin stamp 1st Edition cards as “2nd Edition”, however the presence of the images in a Nintendo-copyrighted magazine is surely something PSA will find difficult to dismiss.
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That is super interesting, didn’t know this was known!
It means that most 104-01 decks containing “normal” rarity cards (as opposed to no rarity) can actually be identified without opening it?
If yes, quite some money could have been spared!
Exactly, but nowadays they seem almost impossible to find. Most actual listings are newer decks with a 7 digit postal code. And even those with 5 digits don’t seem to fit the other critera. The best way to get one (or two 
) of them would be a gift pack. But havn’t seen them for quite a long time.
Greetings
Martin
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