Hello everyone,
I recently picked up a sealed pack of the Japanese version of aquapolis vol. 2. And I had a question about the price difference for 1st edition vs unlimited. The pack I bought is unlimited and from what I can find online the unlimited print is much rarer than the 1st edition. My question is if 1st edition is still more expensive or if the prices are similar between the two due to rarity. Appreciate any help!
You mean Aquapolis is the English version of Town on No Map 
ha!
To answer your question, some sets are 50/50 for 1st edition and unlimited in terms of print volume. Quite a few are heavily favored toward 1st edition (unlimited being rarer). Value wise, a lot of people come from being a degenerate English collector only and think “oh 1st edition, me like it more” when in fact the unlimited is the harder to find one. That is why sometimes 1st ed is valued more when it has no business being that way
Thanks for the response. Yeah I figured most people would favor 1st edition just simply off of the fact that it has the stamp. I have no plans to sell the pack anytime soon so I was just mostly asking out of curiosity. But I personally prefer to have things that are rarer anyways regardless of if the price reflects it or not.
Unlimited is definitely rarer. About 7 times rarer based off of PSA pop. So value-wise you should definitely expect a premium. For more expensive cards from the set, the price between unlimited and 1st edition can vary quite a bit. I think a 10-20% price difference for a boosterpack is a good minimum but I really don’t know the sealed vintage market, especially for japanese.
That’s only for E1 Base Expansion Pack & e-Starter Deck (where despite there are no Unlimited Booster, some cards from the expansion and deck were distributed as Unlimited somehow) where there’s a huge difference in prices between 1st Edition and Unlimited, being Unlimited much more expensive (except for Ponyta which was distributed as insert in Card Info Vol.4)
For expansions from E2 to E5, Unlimited is not very rare, but it’s still uncommon to find. I’ve seen both 1st Edition and Unlimited booster packs at similar prices …
Chances are, you won’t be getting a premium for Unlimited over 1st Edition here. The vast majority of collectors have such tunnel vision when it comes to 1st Edition, and I’d be willing to bet that most people outside of E4 probably don’t even know that the Unlimited is rarer.
You’re not wrong, but most people won’t see it that way. This is one of those situations where something is almost too niche for its own good.
I think your reasoning makes a lot of sense. In my experience rarity often doesn’t = value. Plenty of really rare pokemon products I feel are vastly undervalued despite being extremely hard to get. But the demand for them isn’t high. In this case there is an alternative (1st edition) that most people view as better. So id imagine at best the prices are the same for both despite unlimited being rarer. Thanks for your response!
Thanks for your response! Yeah based off of what everyone is saying I’m leaning towards it being worth a similar price.
Thanks for your response! Appreciate you looking into pop reports to help define the rarity.
Normally I’d agree with you, but I’ve noticed that unlimited cards tend to go for more, depending on the set.
For instance, a mysterious Mountains Moltres Unlimited PSA 9 went for 600+ USD(while 1st edition sells for 350).
I think the PSA pop report on Ebay has made people much more aware of the rarity of Unlimited. And I really don’t see 1st edition japanese sell for any sort of premium anywhere.
