Uncut sheet of rare first-edition Pokémon cards, including two shadowless Charizards, appears at auction

A rare uncut sheet of first-edition Pokémon cards from the trading card game’s original Base Set has gone under the hammer.

The uncut sheet - produced before the individual cards are cut out later in the manufacturing process - includes all 16 of the holographic ‘shiny’ cards from the Pokémon TCG’s 1999 Base Set, its first English-language release. Among the holo cards is the ever-popular shiny Charizard, along with fellow first-gen evolutions Blastoise and Venusaur, which appeared on the front of the series’ Game Boy games Pokémon Red, Blue and Green.

The Pokémon cards on the sheet are also shadowless, named for the lack of a drop-shadow effect on the frame of their artwork that was introduced in later print runs of the set, signifying that the cards date from the earliest printings of the Base Set. The first-edition shadowless holographic Charizard ranks as one of the most expensive Pokémon cards of all time, with a mint-condition copy selling for $300,000 in January 2021.

Not one, but two Charizard cards are featured on the sheet currently up for sale at auction house Goldin, alongside two Blastoise, three Venusaurs, ten copies of legendary Pokémon Mewtwo and a selection of other familiar Pokémon such as Gyarados, Alakazam, Clefairy, Zapdos and Pikachu evolution Raichu. Nearly a third of the sheet’s 99 cards are Machamp cards, with 32 copies of the buff fighting Pokémon making an appearance.

The sheet itself is said to be in “good” condition due to slight scuffing and fading, according to Goldin, with handwriting along the top of the page in black marker that dates it to November 1998. Goldin described the sheet as being a “historic [...] piece of immense rarity”.

The uncut sheet of first-edition Pokémon cards is up for auction until February 24th, with the current top bid for the sheet sitting at $31,000 at the time of writing.