I was recently thinking about this and was wondering if anyone had any information on how big of a population shadowless may have? I understand that the actual numbers aren’t there. I was basically wondering if anyone knew that there was maybe 5x as much shadowless as base 1st ed.
I remember in one of smpratte’s interviews with Gary, they discussed and compared the size of the print runs of first ed. base and shadowless.
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No. Let’s just say fewer Shadowless besides the theme deck cards. They were tougher to grade too.
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It’s ultimately guess work/experience. In my experience shadowless is significantly less than unlimited, and slightly more than 1st Ed base. Even if shadowless and 1st Ed were 1 to 1 print quantity, shadowless had added theme decks. Also shadowless had a wider distribution region. 1st Ed was primarily limited to the coasts. Shadowless was more National, even some in other countries like AU.
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Thanks for the replies, I knew there were no concrete numbers but I also knew many of you guys were all far more knowledgeable than I am.
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Funny enough, I was recently looking through my big shoebox of childhood cards, and I owned more Shadowless cards (several hundred) than I had Unlimited cards. But I didn’t have a single first edition card.
That’s just my anecdotal experience though but it sure seemed like shadowless were a lot more common than 1st edition to me.
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Comparing the PSA 10 Pop report for the 1st edition base Charizard with the shadowless one gives a little bit of an example on which was printed more and or harder to grade.
My local card shop has hundreds and hundreds of loose shadowless singles. Zero 1st editions. Although, of course people snatch those up as soon as they see them. I’m guilty myself.
And the result David?
Where were you living at the time?
New York City.
Just some random input. I do remember when I was a kid it was very easy for me to find shadowless at flea markets. But I only ever had one 1st ed base holo which was a Raichu I bought for $44 at a flea market in Daytona Beach, FL while traveling. Bankrupt me as a poor young child but definitely worth it.
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120 to 52. But you knew that already 
Comparing the Pop report doesn’t provide anything meaningful. Shadowless cards weren’t designated for a long time. The Pop will always be inaccurate. Also there isn’t a more comprehensive pop report than 1st Edition Base set. Perhaps outside of Base Unlimited, nothing was/is submitted as consistently from 1999 until today.
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Some things that need to be said. I don’t know why people are using personal anecdotes as evidence, but the spread of a card doesn’t mean it has more produced.
Konami is the only reps I’ve actually been able to talk to but they claim the industry standard is to use a majority of a print run for the 1st editions. Someone else would have to comment on WOTC policy as I don’t know.
I believe Gary’s statement to be the most accurate in that shadowless was less except theme deck cards.
The pop report is probably as accurate as the 1st ed, even when shadowless was designated very few people were sending in shadowless cards because they weren’t selling for very much.
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Starts by saying anecdotal evidence shouldn’t be used. Finishes with anecdotal evidence
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I think its quite obvious that shadowless are more common than 1st edition.
Is anything I said wrong?
- There are more shadowless charizords in the pop than 1st ed (2,412 vs 2,318)
- Pop is the worst thing to try to use to get an indication of print run. Pop is only an indication of popularity, the rarest and most desirable cards are disproportionately graded. There are 2,318 1st ed charizords in the population report and 167 unlimited Machokes. Are unlimited Machokes 13x rarer than 1st ed charizords? If you take the pop of all the cards in 1st, shadowless and unlimited base, and sorted from lowest to highest pop, you would have a list that inversely correlates with rarity (i.e. lowest print numbers → highest pop).
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I thought there were just two discussions being had, the numbers between 1st and shadowless and one off a comment Gary made about shadowless being harder to grade.
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