Question is has anyone ever gone DEEP down the rabbit hole to try to find the print run numbers? Even if its just for the base set?
We know there have to be several people at WOTC and the factories that knew these numbers from 20 years ago. Could be the factory workers getting the orders to print, or accountants having the inventory number on their balance sheets, or higher up managers that made the decisions at the time to print “X” amount.
I know there are people on here that knew WOTC employees…did anyone ever really try to dig deep like an investigative journalist into the number? I find this to be one of the coolest mysteries of pokemon tcg and while all I’ve ever heard is “nobody knows print run numbers” I know that’s simply not true - there are probably dozens if not more people who do know - or at least did at one time.
I swear this is one of those things that people just love to keep a mystery for whatever reason. Whether that’s to hide the total pop because it’s higher than most think or something, I don’t know.
Like you said, if someone in contact with ex-WOTC employees really wanted the numbers, I’m sure they they could get a solid estimate.
I think it’s impossible unless you really get print orders from the print facility. But you can extrapolate, once you have a rough idea on how much e.g. Target holds as default stock, how many Target locations there are and how long a product will stay in stock till discontinued (product is usually discontinued 12-18 months after release) you can start calculating a really really rough base line.
But really, even the “”"" limited print run “”"" of Hidden Fates is still readily available. So we talking print runs of hundreds of millions boosters per set.
Even Rudy, back in 2018-2019, couldn’t even come up with a calculation of how much was being printed. While he had and received tons of printing order slips from his own orders and his Patreons.
I think everyone just repeats the same old “nobody knows” without actually digging deeper. Like you said I’m sure there are many people who know or have some kind of recollection of the numbers.
I think we should send smpratte and kingpokemon to the corporate offices dressed up as janitors and have them try to dig into the accounting ledgers to find out.
but in all seriousness, I think a good way to start is to use Linkedin to identify employees who worked for the company. Try to contact them and see if they respond. Since WOTC doesn’t print pokemon anymore, I don’t think the employees would be too hesitant to really disclose it. Some of these employees might be retired so they might even be willing to meet in person. Sometimes you just need to ask to find out.
@originalera@kpod No. We tried for years. I am glad there are new collectors with fresh ideas and new levels of entitlement. But it isn’t a conspiracy, and it sure as shit isn’t a lack of effort. We have exhausted resources, and ultimately wotc didn’t care. In fact they stopped releasing print numbers for magic years before pokemon existed.
@jcincy101, We have sat down with employees who worked with Wotc and some who still work with nintendo. Its just impossible to get anything definitive. I honestly don’t think anyone knows.
To add some perspective from a WOTC employee, in 1999 numerous sports sets didn’t have a release because Pokemon cards were taking up all the printers. They were manically printing to meet the demand at the time. In fact why WOTC is now owned by Hasbro is mainly due to pokemon. It increased Wotc’s value so quickly, people wanted to sell shares, and they had to get investors, ie. Hasbro.
Keep in mind they stopped sharing print numbers around 1995 for mtg. Add that with the fact they didn’t expect pokemon to explode, its doubtful they have anything definitive. Even if they had intended numbers, those would have been obliterated in 1999.
I think they update it twice yearly with numbers through September and March. Through September 2019 there were 28.8 B+ cards shipped which means they shipped 1.6 B+ cards in the 6 months of March to September of 2019.
I was planning to work on putting together my best estimates as to what this could potentially mean for each set along the way, but it just had too much uncertainty from all the decks, languages, promos, multiple sets in print at a time, etc. to be worth anything IMO. If someone wants to run with it go ahead.
As others have said, we don’t know. Until we ever have proof (which is doubtful to ever happen at this point), the best we can do is try to piece together bits of information and guess.
Pokemon representative claiming in late February 1999 that 125 million cards had already been pre-sold (not actually made yet). He also mentions that they had already gone through at least the first 3 print runs for the Base Set cards and that the cards had been selling 10x better than what they had expected: www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/1999/02/15/story4.html
Now, *my* assumption would be that the second and third print runs were larger than the first. It would make sense if WOTC was more cautious with the first print run and once they saw how popular the cards were they ramped things up for the subsequent print runs.
I would also assume (this topic came up recently) that of the cards in the first print run (1st edition and Shadowless cards) that a significant majority of those cards were Shadowless / non-1st edition.
So you can try to extrapolate what the true print numbers might have been, but it’s all guesswork.
One more thing - keep in mind the numbers I’m talking about above are obviously the total number of cards, not for each card. So take Charizard for example. 1 could be found in every 45 booster packs. So 1 out of 495 booster packs cards was a Charizard. But then you have to take into account that a huge number of the cards sold came in the 2-player starter decks and the theme decks. So overall it might be said that something like 1 out of every 1000+ Base Set cards that were made was actually a Charizard.
Without official numbers, there’s no way you’re going to be able to estimate the print run sizes of sets with any real precision. What I do, however, think is possible is approximating how large print runs were relative to each other. There’s two decades of eBay sales data, pop reports, and a variety of other resources that on their own are imperfect measures, but which I think could generate a pretty accurate composite.
But I think trying to figure out the total number of cards of a given set printed is going to be a fool’s errand. But I’d love to be wrong since I’d be super interested in knowing the total print run sizes of sets.
Sounds like lots of people tried. Best chance would be someone in the seattle area. That’s where most of the cool magic finds and info came from as a bunch of the original people were still around.
The former CEO and founder of wizards of the coast was Peter Adkison. He resigned in 2001 after the company was sold to TSR. His father, Gary, has stayed involved in the Magic scene all of these years even after the company was sold. He used to be active on the magic librarities forum. I haven’t been there in years so don’t know if he still is. I bought a sealed beta starter box from him a long time ago. I think he gradually sold off his *socrazyyouwouldn’tevenbelieveit* stash of vintage magic stuff over the years to pay the bills. Has anyone tried to contact Peter or Gary? Gary was not the healthiest man even 6-7 years ago so don’t know how hard it would be now.
EDIT: i just friend requested him on facebook. I also logged into magic librarities and shot him a message. He goes by mystical_tutor there. I’ll obviously share if I get anything. But sadly, looks like he was last active there as of fall 2017. The tagline in his profile is the best “father to a former wizards of the coast janitor”.
nintendo themselves dont do the actual print run for the cards, pokemon handles that matter since their office is also the same state as both nintendo and microsoft. no one knows the print runs of the cards sadly I have asked someone that works closely with both NoA and Pokemon and even they dont know that answer themselves. but I do know Pokemon gives some very nice things to their workers
to be clear it was WOTC, founded by Peter Adkison that helped Richard Garfield commercialize MtG in the early 90s. WOTC bought TSR (dungeons and dragons) in the late 97. then in 1999 hasbro bought WOTC. I also mis-stated that TSR bought WOTC in my earlier post but it was the other way around