Dylan's Pokemon Card Blog Project
April 14th, 2024 - Base Set
I feel it's appropriate for a first blog post to be about the first ever booster pack released for the Pokemon TCG. This pack is simply referred to as the "base set" as it can't really be considered an expansion, it really was the original. As you could guess, it contains a card for ALMOST each of the 151 available Pokemon from the Kanto region. It contained 102 cards total, in both the US and Japanese releases.
It's where we first got introduced to some of the peculiar variations of early sets. This set started with a "limited" run, which as the name implies, contained limited print cards with a symbol on them indicating that they were the first print. These are very valuable nowadays. After that was the "unlimited run" which changed some components of the card art, most notably adding a drop shadow to the background. Shadowless cards are also exceptionally valuable.
I own two cards from the unlimited run! Gyarados and Poliwhirl to be exact.