Simple question; what do you like better, the Shadowless, 1st edition art, or the unlimited.
With these Venusaurs, I noticed that the Unlimited has a very light flower, with the Shadowless having a darker Venusaur and almost brown flower. The 1st edition is somewhere in between with a bright red flower.
In the case of the Venusaur I like the 1st edition the most. Not sure if this goes for all of them.
Your shadowless copy is very sexy. 
Thanks. I love how the shades of green are different on all of them. That goes for the card, the Venusaur and the plant under the flower.
I think your first edition Venusaur is the same printing as the ‘ruby’ Charizard. Just deeper hues and a better pop.
This applies to shadowless as well.
From what I see on ebay though, they pretty much all are brighter red (the 1st edition), with the Shadowless being more brownish.
This reminded me of something I’ve always been curious about but always forget to ask.
I’m aware of the primary distinction between the variants eg. 1st ed stamp/no drop shadow, no first ed stamp/no drop shadow, no first ed stamp/drop shadow. Also the differences in color saturation on the Pokemon art itself and the portion of the card that contains the text.
Do those color saturation differences bring out different features of the holo across variants as well?
I ask because the only card I’ve owned all three variants of was Mewtwo. The shadowless copy is gone now, but when I had it, I remember looking at all three copies side by side by side and thinking the holos looked noticeably different across all three variants.
@ArcticLapras hopefully I didn’t hijack your thread too much. To answer your question I prefer 1st ed, shadowless, unlimited on the Venusaur based on your pictures. Primarily because of the differences in the flower
I honestly don’t know if I have a preference, purely aesthetically. I like them all! But I do find the differences between all three (as well as Base Set 2000) just fascinating. It was only a few months ago I realised that unlimited artwork is shifted on many cards, compared to their 1st ed / shadowless counterpart. I first realised on Charmeleon (shifted slightly to the right on unlimited) and then saw similar shifting on the few shadowless card I own personally.
@smpratte Talked about this in a video about his base set binder a few years back. A lot of cards have positional differences and I think almost all of them have color palette differences. For example, on all 3 of these cards the colors are more saturated on 1st Ed/Shadowless. The Unlimited Staryu artwork is zoomed out more and the Tangela is shifted down:
The Squirtle is another example, where the Unlimited is zoomed out significantly compared to 1st Ed/Shadowless:
Awesome. I’m gonna check out the video, thanks!
Not entirely sure what you´re asking, But the holofoil colour is indeed different on all three. In my experience (but I only have info on the Venusaur), the Shadowless card is darkest with the 1st edition being slightly less dark (also the holofoil).
