How many prints per Gen 1 card

Hey everyone!

Just wondering if there’s an official number on how many prints there are of each Pokémon. The ones I can think of:

1st, Shadowless, Unlimited, 4th UK print, thick stamp, thin stamp, black stamp, gray stamp (unless I’m mistaken and black stamps are always thick while greys are always thin?), and then the various misprints for various cards

Also is there an official number on how many misprints there are in the Gen 1 deck or are there endless random misprints?

Still kinda new to all this so sorry if this is a dumb question!

There are a few contradicting words in your post. You mention gen 1 cards, but almost all the variations you’ve mentioned (e.g. Shadowless; 4th UK print; and the 1st edition stamp variations) only apply to the English Base Set. You also mention ‘official numbers’, but the thick vs thin stamps; grey stamps; and back stamps are all misprints, and misprints aren’t ‘official’ releases. Only the 1st edition; Shadowless; unlimited ©1999; and unlimited ©1999-2000 are the four officially released English Base Set variations.

But apart from that, do you want to know all different versions in general of the sets, or are you wondering about all variations for a particular Pokémon?
For all 1st edition stamp variations (including the errors), I can refer to this 1st edition stamps article.
If you’re looking for all cards of a certain Pokémon, I might have already made a list for it here, and if not I can make one for you if you’d want. :blush:
For almost all WotC era misprints I can refer to this article.

Greetz,
Quuador

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WotC, unfortunately, has never released official numbers. As Quuador rightly says, only the four 1st/shadowless/unlimited/2000 ‘prints’ are official designations; other things like stamp variation are random factors introduced by the extreme demand and the concomitant rush to meet it.

The basic answer is that there is much more unlimited than anything else, though by what factor is unclear. I doubt it has ever been established whether there is more first edition or shadowless; I’m not even sure whether there was a separate shadowless run, or if it was only ‘left-over’ first edition (since the stamp was added later).

Anecdotally, the fourth printing/1999-2000 run is harder to find than shadowless, but it also demands a lower premium so people are less likely to sell it; and undoubtedly many are sold as simple unlimited by people who don’t know the difference.

Ultimately, even if we knew the numbers, nothing would probably change in terms of relative prices. First edition, even if (say) more available than shadowless, is more intelligible and has a a more obvious ‘brand’, and will always demand the highest premium. Similarly, if fourth printing were more scarce than shadowless, the smaller visual difference would probably still leave shadowless more popular.

No one knows as far as I know. If you want to estimate the supply of specific meaningful cards then your best bet is to check the PSA population reports to see how many have been graded

www.psacard.com/pop