Japanese Expedition Set - 1st edition only?

General
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Hi all, I’ve been looking for some specific cards from the Japanese Expedition set (Base expansion pack) and I haven’t been able to find the unlimited versions in actual years. Like…10+ years.

I feel like I’ve seen unlimited cards from the set before but never the ones I need: the Abra evo line.

Can anyone confirm one way or the other? End my torment.

Thanks

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Yes, they exist but are extraordinarily rare. A notable exception is ponyta which was given out as unlimited in as an info pack promo so it is much more common.
www.psacard.com/pop/tcg-cards/2001/pokemon-japanese-expedition/99974You can see some examples in the pop report. I’ve heard these were given out at some kind of tournament and also I heard something about not all e1 cards being available as unlimited. Others can provide more details.

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www.elitefourum.com/t/japanese-unlimited-e-series-1-cards-base-expansion-pack/16426/1

This is the thread for you my good sir

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I have a blog article all about the set: pichu.blog/unlimited-e1.

The tl;dr is that we don’t know with any certainty where the cards originated and - including the Ponyta card which @pkmnflyingmaster mentioned above - only 6 cards from the Expedition set itself are known to exist in unlimited and 9 cards from the 29-card Pokémon-e Starter Deck are known to exist in unlimited so far.

The two best theories we have so far are that they were either from a learning event at one of Japan’s Pokémon Center stores (which only 1 listing back in 2017 has ever hinted at) or the 2002 Shogakukan Spring Break Illustration Contest which featured an abnormal-looking Pokémon-e Starter Deck as a promotional image. Neither have enough data points to really back them up: if it was a learning event, why are there no trainer cards? If it was a special Pokémon-e Starter Deck: why have we only seen a handful of the cards and why would Charizard and Pichu be part of that?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Thank you all, I appreciate the supporting info. Based on the pop report and the PichuFan blog entry, I’m going to remove the unlimited cards from my spreadsheets.

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I picked up the zard (071/128) mentioned the other day.

Very strange that there is no clear origin. :face_with_monocle:

Maybe its a more common card than i think but then again ive not seen anymore openly for sale apart from the graded ones ive come across for very premium prices.