Hi all, I have recently discovered the Web Series and was having difficulty finding a ton of background on it. Does anyone know how to tell the difference between a first edition or unlimited pack? Why does this promotional series seem so much less emphasized than others? It has some of the best arts in my opinion and feels like Legendary Collection for amazing Japanese artworks.
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A.f.a.i.k. you’ll have to look at the cards within it unfortunately. The Pokémon Web booster packs are transparent, but I don’t think there is a difference visible from the front insert card, based on my sealed Pokémon Web booster packs containing the 1st/unlimited edition Moltres:
Also, in case you or anyone else reading this are unaware: the Holofoil cards that are in the packs can be deducted from the barcode on the blue inserts.
All the barcodes for the Pokémon Web booster packs will be of this form: 4521329 013AA B, where the B is a random digit that can be ignored, but the AA can be used to determine which Holofoil Rare is in the pack:
01-04 = Dark Venusaur
05-08 = Dark Charizard
09-12 = Moltres
13-16 = Dark Blastoise
17-20 = Articuno
21-24 = Zapdos
25-28 = Gengar
29-32 = Machamp
Greetz,
Quuador
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This is just some of the basic stuff I know.
This set was just a set of re-printed cards released via blind booster pack (had a blue insert so you cant directly see the cards) of 10 cards, 9 normal and 1 holofoil.
This pack could only be purchased online making it 1 of the only 2 sets that was distributed that way. The other being the World Championship Pack from 2007. It was a Japan only exclusive and was never released in English.
Card info:
Tangela-005 and Electrode-026 were featured as cards in Pokemon Card GB2 for the GameBoy Colour, illustrated with the original card layout from base, with a GB logo. The prints in this set are the only physical versions of these cards released.
Ivysaur-001 and Wartortle-009 come from the original intro pack from 1999.
Magikarp-035 is the reprint of the very famous University Magikarp promo and is the only other reprint copy sharing that art.
Moltres-043 , Articuno-045, Zapdos-046 are holofoil variations of the ANA promos from 1999 featuring new artwork which was used originally used in the US Pokemon 2000 Movie promotion version of the cards.
Gengar-047, Machamp-048 are reprint of the Masaki promo cards and are 2 of the 5 Masaki cards which were re-printed.
Rest of the cards are re-prints of Base set through Rocket with some shared artwork from the Vending Sheet series. There are also some promo cards in this set.
As far as I know, the unlimited is slightly rarer than the first edition version although I am not sure if there is much difference in the pricing. The blue insert also moves/shifts inside the pack allowing you to see the cards so it is easy to know what holofoil card is present in the sealed pack of cards. This means it will be possible to identify if the cards inside are unlimited or first edition (I might be wrong since I have not checked this myself).
Edit: @Quuador beat me to it with images of the 2 variants.
Cheers!
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One of my favorites - definitely under appreciated!
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Love the Web series. I’m one card away from completing a PSA 10 Unlimited Holo set! The E-reader boarder really adds something special to the classic artworks.
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Some additional info, looks like when you made a purchase of the pack you could immediately see the card online that you got via the Pokémon Card Browser. I wish we could still access this database 
買ったカードの中身がみえる!!
注文手続きが全て終了した後の画面にある下のリンクボタンをクリックすると、カードブラウザが立ち上がって、買ったカードの中身を見ることができる！
Google translate
You can see the contents of the card you bought!!
When you click the link button below on the screen after completing the order procedure, the card browser will launch and you can see the contents of the card you purchased!
https://web.archive.org/web/20020203214215fw_/http://www.pokemoncenter-online.com/detail.msp?id=1020
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I’m loving this thread.
The Web Series is one of my favourite sets of all time. It just fascinates me.
To my surprise there are so many interesting facts about the web series and some of them are rarely stated. So here is a short summary of my favourite facts about the web series. Please feel free to correct me if I got something wrong:
- First Japanese set focusing on reprints
- One of the earliest e-reader border cards ( they can not be read by an E-Reader though)
- One of the earliest sets with new back side
- Only includes gen 1 with the exception of Maril
- No English release
- Only available online
- The cards in the set are numbered from 1 to 48. They placed Pikachu at 25 so Pikachu has the same number in the set as it’s original Pokédex number.
- The rarities in the set are interesting. For example Dark Weezing. In its original release Dark Weezing had a star rarity. In the Pokémon Web set it has an uncommon rarity. Same goes for example for dark slowbro. Usually reprinted cards nowadays retain their original rarity or even get a higher rarity with different artwork. So I think they made an interesting choice back then to change the rarities downwards.
- Some cards weren’t available as non holos in Japan before the release of the web series for example Dark Alakazam, Nidoking and Ninetails.
- The legendary birds in the set with the used artwork were previously released only outside of Japan as a movie promo. They were actually reprints of the original Japanese ANA airlines promos which used different art. But in Japan the artwork from the movie promos release was first published in the web series and on top of that these are holo versions while they were only released as non holo outside of Japan.
- Another fun fact about the legendary birds. They are actually not a straight reprint either because they added a weakness to each of the birds for the web series that wasn’t included in the movie promos and was also not included in the ANA promo print.
- Some cards have slightly zoomed in artwork. I originally thought its only the placement of the border that makes it look like the art has a different size. But that isn’t true. When comparing for example Magikarp with the original released university Magikarp it’s noticeable (and measurable) that the artwork is slightly zoomed in for the web series.
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Just a small info.
There is a new video on Instagram posted by TheFineCard (I really like them no hate here) and I feel that the video is misleading. What stated in the video is not accurate. It states that it was a packaging mistake that the holo in a Web Series booster was visible by sliding the cards. This is false.
While it is true that you could see the holo when sliding the cards inside the pack it’s totally not true that this was a mistake.
As we know you could even check the contents of a web series booster after purchase directly online on the website (as stated above by kev) . So you were able to check your boosters content even before recieving it. (And when you received it there was the code from which it’s possible as well to know which holo is included).
I just wanted to clarify it since misinformation spreads fast nowadays and that account has almost 50k followers. I just think that video completely missed the cool points of the web Series.
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