Background
Always on the lookout for no rarity base set Japanese cards, I’ve run countless times into sellers or collectors who mistakenly (or on purpose?) label some trainer cards as "No Rarity Base Set _____ " although they are not. And although this might be common knowledge for many collectors, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to write down a few tips about how to differentiate the real no rarity base set cards from their less rare – but very similar in look – variants. The main reason? I’ve recently found out that even grading companies seem to get it wrong, so much so that over 70% of the POP report on some rarer cards might actually be mislabeled stuff.
Look at these two graded cards for example. This is one instance of CGC and PSA offering the same quality of service, as they both got it equally wrong: despite what the label tells you, neither of these cards are from the Base Set.
Quick Starter Gift Set
These cards are actually from the Quick Starter Gift Set, which contained non-glossy versions of Vending cards (including beautiful holo versions of some of them), and updated versions of trainers such as Gust of Wind, Pokémon Trader, Energy Retrieval, Switch and Potion.
All the cards in that set are non-glossy, and none feature a rarity symbol.
If the trainers in that set are reprints from Base Set, non-glossy and featuring no rarity or set symbol, how are you supposed to tell they’re not the No Rarity Base Set versions? (is the question the good people at grading companies forgot to ask)
Well, it’s all in the card text. And good news: you don’t even need to know Japanese to tell the difference. The simple rule of thumb is that the No Rarity Base Set versions are messier: it was the first ever set of Pokémon cards, and the designers had no idea how to efficiently phrase card effects yet.
Now let’s look at all five offenders in detail.
Pokémon Trader
one big block vs two paragraphs
See how the text in the Quick Starter Gift Set version is cleanly organized over two paragraphs in a smaller font size, while the No Rarity Base Set version is one chonky block taking all the available space? I told you you really don’t need to know Japanese to tell the difference.
Gust of Wind
6 rows vs 2 rows
This is another one that’s easy to recognize at a glance. The No Rarity Base Set version has a bunch of extra text. By the time they printed the Quick Starter version, they’d figured out maybe they didn’t need to specify you can’t target your opponent’s benched Pokémon if they don’t have a benched Pokémon.
Switch
4 rows vs 3 rows
Here as well, the No Rarity Base Set version’s text is longer. By the time they made the Quick Starter Gift Set, they’d improved the wording enough to make it a whole line shorter.
Energy Retrieval
one big block vs three paragraphs
Same as with Pokémon Trader, here the text on the Quick Starter reprint is cleanly organized over several paragraphs clearly explaining how the card works, while the No Rarity Base Set version was more like “here, good luck figuring out the detailed rulings on that one”.
Potion
3 rows vs 4 rows
This one breaks the pattern as for once the Quick Starter version is neither shorter nor organized over several paragraphs. The original No Rarity Base Set version is actually the shorter one, using only 3 lines of text.
Population Report
Now you know the differences between both versions or cards that may look very similar at a glance, but are actually very different both in terms of release and in terms of content.
But now you might be thinking: “great, as if there’s much of a difference in value between two versions of freaking Potion”. And although I won’t get into an argument about the difference in value between two versions of some non-inspiring trainer cards (No Rarity Base Set version is the OG and much rarer in good condition /end of argument), there’s one where I think the difference really matters…
No Rarity Base Set Pokémon Trader’s PSA 10 POP report is all messed up
Screenshot from July 2021
Take a look at the Pop report for No Rarity Symbol versions of all nine Rare Trainers from Base Set. Are you seeing the issue? Mint copies of these cards are extremely rare: there weren’t many made in the first place, and trainers back then were absolutely broken, so most copies have been put in decks and played to oblivion. Some of them have only one PSA 10 copy, with Item Finder still waiting for its first Gem Mint 10 copy. And then there’s Pokémon Trader, with a PSA 10 population 5 times the average.
I’m willing to bet that’s not because Japanese kids in October 1996 took particularly good care of that smartly dressed fellow and his faithful Farfetch’d, nor is it because considerably more copies were set for grading due to Pokémon Trader being several times more popular than even Lass, the original waifu card. I’m pretty sure it’s just that a bunch of people sent in their considerably less rare Quick Starter copies, which ended up being mislabelled.
I’m pretty sure anyone who’s in the business of collecting a PSA 9-10 No Rarity Base Set master set nowadays should already know that, but please be careful when buying a graded Pokémon Trader. Otherwise you might end up being the fool who buys a random reprint for 400$ thinking they got a killer deal on the first print of an old classic.
*Apologies if you’re the person who bought that card, and purchased it fully knowing it was the Quick Starter version and thinking it was a fair price. You do you!
Conclusion
Now I’d like to ask a favour from everyone here: if you own a PSA graded copy of “No Rarity Symbol Pokémon Trader”, could you please check and let us know what version it actually is? Or if you know someone who has one, get them to chime in here?
Maybe eventually we can get a rough idea of how many PSA 9 and 10 copies of that card actually exist. We might at some point even get an exact number – after all, there’s at most 24 people we need to contribute to check the full 9 & 10 population.
I doubt there’s more than 4 PSA 10 copies, the record currently held by Super Energy Removal.
I’d love to see at least one genuine PSA 10 copy, for a start.
Click here for a list of currently confirmed PSA 9 & 10 Pokémon Traders
| Column 1 | Column 3 |
|---|---|
| 22452728 | no rarity |
| 25459094 | no rarity |
| 25746404 | no rarity |
| 25746405 | no rarity |
| 26422138 | gift set |
| 28239460 | gift set |
| 28779883 | gift set |
| 43617781 | gift set |
| 48032571 | gift set |
| 48032575 | gift set |
| 49630638 | no rarity |
| 51014639 | gift set |
