Japanese Unlimited E Series 1 Cards (Base Expansion Pack)

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I had been swayed over to the general consensus that both Charizard and Pichu were not part of the 2002 colouring contest set (after all, why would they be - they were not part of the Pokémon-e Starter Deck the set appeared to be based on). However recently I’ve noticed that Japanese sellers who are aware of the unlimited variant tend to own Charizard and Pichu alongside the other unlimited cards. This could just be a big coincidence, but to me it doesn’t feel right.

If the majority of the unlimited cards we’ve seen so far are solely distributed in that obscure 2002 set, I feel that perhaps Charizard and Pichu may have been given out alongside the sets or even included as part of the sets themselves, perhaps replacing cards which I do not believe have surfaced yet like Koffing or Hoppip.

That said, I now own 3 unlimited Pichus and in the past 6 months have actively chosen to ignore 2 separate auctions which included them. I’m aware now of 15 different unlimited Pichus, which I believe to be significantly more than any of the other unlimited cards (second to Charizard with 5 copies [edit: actually I’m aware of 8 Cyndaquils]). Could the contest have worked in a similar fashion to the Battle Road contests whereby the Pichu could have been a participation prize and the Charizard some sort of finalist prize? Heck, the Charizard may be just as common (for lack of a better word) as the Pichu itself… maybe?

To back up what I said before, here are some images from Japanese shopping sites:

  1. mhcqw353 on YJA with both unlimited Charizard and Pichu along with both Charmanders, Charmeleon and Clefairy: i.imgur.com/MakbO2C.png, i.imgur.com/1EtD7xf.png
  2. 切れ味 on Mercari with an unlimited Pichu along with 2 unlimited Chikoritas a Bulbasaur and a Charmander: i.imgur.com/WmViEpk.png

Here is the full list of cards contained in the Pokémon-e Starter Deck cross-referenced with known unlimited variants:

FixedThese cards always appear in the Pokémon-e Starter Deck:

RandomEight of these cards are included in the Pokémon-e Starter Deck at random:

  • 001/128 Koffing
  • 002/128 Hoppip
  • 003/128 Caterpie
  • 004/128 Ekans
  • 005/128 Oddish
  • 006/128 Vulpix
  • 007/128 Ponyta
  • 008/128 Poliwag
  • 009/128 Shellder
  • 010/128 Krabby
  • 011/128 Goldeen
  • 012/128 Magikarp
  • 013/128 Marill
  • 014/128 Qwilfish
  • 015/128 Corsola
  • 016/128 Pikachu - i.imgur.com/vd9zl0x.png
  • 017/128 Mareep
  • 018/128 Abra
  • 019/128 Gastly
  • 020/128 Diglett
  • 021/128 Machop
  • 022/128 Geodude
  • 023/128 Cubone
  • 024/128 Larvitar
  • 025/128 Pidgey
  • 026/128 Rattata
  • 027/128 Spearow
  • 028/128 Clefairy - i.imgur.com/t1uE8bD.jpg
  • 029/128 Meowth - i.imgur.com/7JtslYL.png
  • 030/128 Tauros
  • 031/128 Dratini
  • 032/128 Houndour

Notice how the majority of cards have yet to surface. Furthermore the 079/128 Charizard and 082/128 Pichu are not part of the mass-produced Pokémon-e Starter Deck which only had a 1st Edition release. choco7maron, who appears to have now deleted the posts about his unlimited collection, owns at least 2 Clefairy and 3 Meowth, likewise I’m aware of 3 Pikachus that have surfaced. With 32 cards available and only 8 picked at random per box, if there were 50 of the colouring contest sets give out statistically only 12 or 13 of each of the 32 random cards should exist, so the fact we’ve only seen 3 but we’ve seen multiples of those 3 is suspicious.

I’m leaning more to the conclusion that the colouring contest box likely had fixed contents which all included Meowth, Clefairy and Pikachu along with the Charizard and Pichu that aren’t part of the original Pokémon-e Starter Deck - perhaps it contained 2 or 3 Pichus in each box to make up numbers. Perhaps though that’s just what I want to believe as a Pichu collector - owning 3 of a card which potentially only had 50 copies distributed feels more like a pipe dream than a reality.

Anyway, I figure it’s worth sharing this here (you know, for the internet points):

https://instagram.com/p/CANzPVmFxQK

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