The Black Flame Ninetales

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The Black Flame Ninetales

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For those that are seeing this for the first time it’s an Unlimited Base Set Ninetales (12/102) but the flame around Ninetales is black instead of purple. (See side by side comparison below)

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After searching ebay for a few month’s checking every Ninetales card listed i managed to find one on a BIN and scooped it up, Having it in hand i was now determined to find out some more information about it starting with evidence of it being pulled from a pack. It took a while searching through pack opening videos for every time a Ninetales was pulled but i finally found one being pulled from 6 years a go!

PrimtimePokemon’s Video @ 10:52

See also LeonHart’s pack opening video found by @jkanly

www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0MU7sAmMVY

You can see in these video’s that the Booster Packs being opened are;

There is no evidence this card comes from any other pack as of yet.

Error or Variant?
My initial theory was that it’s an error card since the packs it comes from are a late print of Unlimited but the Black Flame is not present on previous print runs of Unlimited, leading me to speculate that it was a possible printing error.

However keep in mind that a 1999-2000 Base Set Booster Pack is not guaranteed to have a 1999-2000 print Holo card inside, it has been rumoured that the non-2000 print holo’s inside the packs are old stock, Possibly from an early print run of Unlimited. This would make the most sense as the Black Flame Ninetales shares it’s black flame with the Shadowless & 1st Edition versions and it is also not a 1999-2000 print holo.

Additional Information:
The black flame is also clearly visible on all 1st Edition, Shadowless, Japanese Base Set & Evolutions Ninetales as well. These are the only other prints that contain the black flame that i have found. All other Languages of Unlimited Base Set as well as the 1999-2000 Print, Base Set 2 & Legendary Collection Ninetales have the purple flame.

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I would still love to find out more about this card. If you know any more information about it or have some theories please share! There is still a ton i don’t know but i am grateful for the efour community teaching me new things daily so please let me know if anything is wrong & i will correct it.
Finally i encourage you to check through your binders to see if you have one of these super rare Ninetales and share it below :blush:

Thanks to:
@alovell for sharing his thread were he found one of these error’s
@jkanly for his brilliant guide helping me determine which packs the error comes from
PrimetimePokemon for opening a Base Booster Box 6 years ago
@fritz for getting the first ever Black Flame Ninetales graded with CGC as well as his YouTube video about this card.

ϞϞ(๑⚈ ․̫ ⚈๑)∩

Changelog:
9th.October.2020 - Added LeonHart pack opening shared by @jkanly

9th.Febuary.2021 - Black Flame Ninetales officially recognized by CGC
Link to CGC’s Article about the Black Flame Ninetales here
4th.March.2021 - Error or Variant? : removed mention of it being an error card & added additional information regarding possible history of the card.

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What an awesome and insightful post! I’d have never guessed these came out of base 2000 packs. I’ve also been keeping an eye out for them on eBay; I picked up two copies a few months ago. It’s a neat error for sure, thanks for the detective work!

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A couple PSA 10s exist. Majority I’m aware of are owned by a few people who have been buying them off eBay for years. It was speculated this version is more closely tied with Shadowless & 1st edition since it matches the art format (i.e. printed shortly after).

US 99-00 seems a bit weird overall. We can make a few guesses, but they’d just be guesses. Why go back to original print & not also update copyright? 99-00 holos were largely speculated as leftovers from earlier base unlimited print runs - so same art as unlimited base.

Would a Charizard variation exist without the purple if art templates were changed? Would it have 99 instead of 99-00?

There’s a lot to think through. Nice find on 99-00 opening. Seems weird, but then again everything base set is a mixed bag (where’s the energy going to be in this pack?).

Nice post!

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Outstanding! Thank you for posting this!! I’ll add a hyperlink to this page on the error card guide once added:) (once I have a free time)

Also, here’s a link to another opening on Leon’s channel:

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Thanks for the info! There is definately lots to think about, It’s exiting to still be finding stuff out about Base Set 20+ years later! PrimetimePokemon sent the cards off to PSA and he has another video of the results where the Ninetales gets a 10 too. (not sure if he is aware or not)

Thanks i would love that!

I can’t believe i missed that video from 2020 and it took me going back 6 years to find the other one… i was searching through black triangle pack openings and everything :laughing:

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Thank you for this post. Very well organized! This awesome rare variant has been overlooked for years.

Here is 1 of 2 PSA 10’s that I am aware of. I have also graded 2 PSA 9’s. PSA does not know anything about them…LOL

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I am convinced there is a difference, even if subtle, for some of the cards in this “pseudo 3rd 4th print” of Unlimited Base Set. You mention a Charizard variant.

After years of staring at these things I’ve managed to convince myself (whether right or wrong) that the ones people post sometimes that have a significant “red” tint to it vs. the usual orange mix (almost like a cool tone version of the Charizard), fall into this print run. Look at the Charizard in the middle here. The red used in the overall card matches the Ninetales exactly. I’ve had a couple of the Ninetales too and the colors in the print are just like this Charizard:

Maybe I’m crazy, but this is just what I’ve observed. Same with Magneton. Take a look at the one in the middle, it has a distinctly different print pattern that almost harkens back to its 1st Edition/Shadowless counterpart, not just a variation in ink layering:

Thoughts?

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@cinnaminhbun You’re definitely correct. There are a few other very subtle differences. I’m sure others have noticed and probably collect uber specific variants. There’s differences among Jungle cards too.

I think most people want to stay quiet while they chase their own collections. There’s certainly things I avoid discussing while still chasing. It’s great to share finds and discuss, but it does make collecting that much harder to complete a goal.

A point I made earlier about “99-00 holos” should have been “99 holos in 99-00 packs”. This was a mistake in my explanation.

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I’ll share one… look at the 3 Magnetons you have pictured. The one on the left has a slightly different font adjustment. The “Put Magneton on the Basic Pokemon” in the top right is bold. The other two cards do not have this text in bold.

Slight variations like this make it truly more difficult to “Catch 'em All”

Finding these is much easier side-by-side. It’s near impossible when looking at them one at a time.

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I was completely unaware of this variation so thank you for this post.

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This is why this community is so amazing! Such a well-written and insightful post :blush: thanks for sharing!

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Out of curiosity: do you know if these kind of variations also occur on non-Holos? Or Pikachu in particular? :wink:

Greetz,
Quuador

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@quuador

To be frank, I’ve only followed holos for these small variances. There’s something similar with shadowless that affects non holos. That may be the one set I’ve noticed something this particular on. Rather than bold, some text is gray, some is black.

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Interesting read, I went to check the ninetales I pulled with Rhymestyle and it also has these black flames. Unforunately def not gonna be a psa 10, centering was pretty bad.
Edit: Derp quick google image search and it looks like the black flames are pretty common if not universal for the 1st ed Ninetales. This is like when I thought the length weight error for bulbasaur wasn’t common either lol

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@pikachutcg, Thank you for bringing this up again and for sharing. Last time I posted about it, it didn’t get a lot of clout. You really did your research! It’s so fun digging through all the cards we’ve had for years in search of a new variant.

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To make things more interesting, I just discovered that every No Damage Ninetales error card also has this black flame. That makes it a double error card! Neat

Here’s a pic:

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@JoshsOddCollection All 1st edition & Shadowless Ninetales have the original Black Flame background. No damage is a subset of Shadowless. I wouldn’t call it a double error since this was the original intent.

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@gemmintpokemon Ah I see, thanks for the info. I misunderstood the original post thinking that it said 1st Edition and Shadowless COULD be affected, not that they WERE affected. Cheers

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Amazing news! CGC has officially recognized Black Flame Ninetales I will update the OP once more information comes out!

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This is the kind of thing that makes this forum awesome. Now every collector is going to go through their Unlimited Ninetales cards to look for this treasure. Thank you for the research!

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