Shadowless vs Unlimited vs 1st Edition Base Set: how to tell the three printings apart and what each is worth

By Rowan Hale, collector and reseller. Last updated October 16, 2026.

Three Base Set Charizards can look the same from across a table and be worth $350, $1,000 and $10,000. The difference is the printing, and it takes about ten seconds to check once you know where to look.

The short version. Look at the right edge of the artwork box. A dark drop shadow means Unlimited, the common printing. No shadow means Shadowless, the scarcer second run, and if there is also a black "Edition 1" stamp on the left of the frame it is 1st Edition. For Base Set, every real 1st Edition card is shadowless, so a stamp on a card with a shadow is fake. In October 2026 a raw Charizard holo was worth roughly $300 to $410 Unlimited, about $1,010 Shadowless and about $9,800 1st Edition.

What are the three Base Set printings?

Wizards of the Coast printed the 1999 English Base Set in waves, and three of them matter for value:

1. 1st Edition. The first print run, marked with a black "Edition 1" stamp on the left side of the art frame. Every 1st Edition Base Set card is also shadowless.
2. Shadowless. The second run, printed from the same plates as 1st Edition but without the stamp. It gets its name from what it lacks: the drop shadow along the right and bottom of the art frame.
3. Unlimited. The main print run that most people own. The card design was redrawn with a drop shadow behind the art frame, bolder red HP text, and a different copyright line. It stayed in print into 2000.

Later Unlimited printings exist too, including the "1999-2000" copyright version, but for most collectors the three above are the ones that change the price.

How do you tell Shadowless from Unlimited?

Look at the right edge of the artwork box. On an Unlimited card there is a dark drop shadow running down the right side and along the bottom of the frame, giving it a raised look. On a Shadowless card the frame is flat, with no shadow at all. Once you have seen the two side by side it is unmistakable, and it works on every card in the set, from Charizard to Energy cards.

Three other tells confirm it:

• The HP text. Unlimited HP is a bold, bright red. Shadowless HP is thinner and a slightly duller red, because it uses the same lighter typeface as 1st Edition.
• The copyright line. Shadowless and 1st Edition read "©1995, 96, 98, 99 Nintendo, Creatures, GAMEFREAK. ©1999 Wizards." Unlimited drops the "99" and reads "©1995, 96, 98 Nintendo, Creatures, GAMEFREAK. ©1999 Wizards."
• The colours. Shadowless cards often look a shade lighter and less saturated than Unlimited ones, though lighting makes this the least reliable test.

How do you spot a real 1st Edition?

The stamp is a black circle with a "1" and the word "EDITION" curved around it, printed on the left of the art frame about a third of the way down. On a genuine card the stamp is crisp, solid black and sits exactly where every other 1st Edition card of that set has it. Two checks protect you from fakes and from stamped Unlimited cards:

• A 1st Edition Base Set card must be shadowless. If there is a stamp and a drop shadow, the stamp was added later. No exceptions exist in Base Set.
• The ink should sit flat. A stamp that is slightly raised, smudged, grey rather than black, or shows a halo under magnification has been applied by hand. Compare the black of the stamp with the black of the card's own text; they should match.

Later sets handled this differently: Jungle and Fossil 1st Editions are not shadowless, and some Jungle 1st Editions are famous for missing the stamp altogether. The rules above are for Base Set specifically.

How much does the printing change the value?

Enormously, and more than condition does for most cards. Taking Charizard as the headline example, in early October 2026 TCGplayer's market price was roughly $300 to $410 for an Unlimited holo, about $1,010 for a Shadowless holo, and about $9,800 for a 1st Edition holo, all raw. The same card, three printings, a thirty-fold spread.

The spread is smaller lower down the set but the order never changes. A Shadowless Gyarados sold for about $40 against $23 for Unlimited; a Shadowless Blastoise for about $350 against $100. For commons and uncommons the gap can be a dollar or two, but for every holo it is worth checking, because a Shadowless card mistaken for Unlimited is money left on the table when selling and an overpayment when buying.

Grading follows the same logic. PSA grades all three printings on the same condition scale, but a PSA 8 Shadowless Charizard and a PSA 8 Unlimited Charizard are different cards with different buyers, so always check the graded prices for the printing you actually hold, not just the card name. The checker prices Unlimited, Shadowless and 1st Edition separately.

Can the app tell which printing you have?

Yes, for the drop shadow. When the checker identifies a Base Set card it looks at the right edge of the art frame and reports whether it found a shadow: a shadow means Unlimited, no shadow means Shadowless. It then prices the card for that printing. The 1st Edition stamp is harder to judge from a phone photo, so when a card is shadowless the result reminds you to look for the stamp yourself and shows both the Shadowless and 1st Edition prices, since the gap between those two is the biggest of all. If the result ever picks the wrong version, "Not right?" lets you choose the correct printing in one tap.

See today's prices: Base Set Blastoise raw and at PSA 10 in the price guide, updated daily from TCGplayer and eBay sales.

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