1999 Pokemon Base Set 1st Edition Charizard #4 Holo PSA 9

The first English Pokemon cards

The Pokemon Trading Card Game began in Japan, where Media Factory published the first set on October 20, 1996. It was designed by Tsunekazu Ishihara, Kouichi Ooyama and Takumi Akabane, and developed by Creatures Inc. as a companion to the Pokemon video games. Wizards of the Coast, the publisher of Magic: The Gathering, licensed it for the United States; the English Base Set went on sale January 9, 1999.

The set has 102 cards: 69 Pokemon, 16 of them holofoil rares, plus 33 Trainer and Energy cards. Charizard is #4, a Stage 2 Fire Pokemon with 120 HP, a Pokemon Power called Energy Burn that turns all attached Energy into Fire Energy, and a Fire Spin attack that does 100 damage if two Energy cards are discarded. That damage figure, huge for the time, is part of why the card was the playground prize from the start.

Wizards printed the English Base Set in four distinct runs. The first carried a small black '1st Edition' stamp at the left edge of the art box. Those cards also lack the drop shadow along the right and bottom of the illustration window and use thinner HP and attack text, traits shared with the second, unstamped 'Shadowless' run. The third run, Unlimited, added the shadow and heavier type; a fourth changed the copyright line to 1999-2000. How many cards each run produced has never been published.

Mitsuhiro Arita and the Wizards years

The Charizard art is by Mitsuhiro Arita, one of four illustrators on the set alongside Ken Sugimori, Keiji Kinebuchi and Tomoaki Imakuni. Arita also painted the art for the Japanese booster packs. The same Charizard picture was reprinted in Base Set 2, in Legendary Collection, and again for the 25th-anniversary Celebrations set in 2021, but only the 1999 Base Set printings carry the original layout collectors chase.

For Wizards, Pokemon was a windfall. Early in 1999 it sold 400,000 packs in less than six weeks, and over five years it published more than a dozen expansions, earning more from Pokemon than it had from Magic: The Gathering in that game's first ten years. The boom did not last: the card market crashed within about a year, Wizards laid off 100 employees, and in June 2003 Nintendo moved the license to The Pokemon Company. By March 2026 the game had produced more than 85 billion cards worldwide.

Pokemania, 1999

The cards landed in the middle of a full-scale craze. The English-language cartoon had premiered in syndication on September 8, 1998, twenty days before the Pokemon Red and Blue games reached North America, and in February 1999 it moved to Kids' WB on Saturday mornings. By November 1999, Nielsen data showed half the boys aged 6 to 11 watching TV at 10 a.m. were watching Pokemon.

Pokemon: The First Movie opened in North America on November 10, 1999, and took $85.7 million in the U.S.; some theaters handed out exclusive promo cards each week of its run. Charizard, the fire-breathing dragon, became the set's must-have card, and early on it sold for upwards of $375 online. After the crash it fell to around $100.

What a PSA 9 has cost

A PSA 9 is the step just below Gem Mint. Its price moves with the PSA 10 above it, but at a fraction of the level. The pandemic boom changed everything: a PSA 10 sold for $350,100 and an SGC 10 for $369,000 on the same day, December 12, 2020, and PSA 10s brought $300,000 in January 2021 and $311,800 in March 2021.

PSA 9s rode the same wave. A June 2021 market roundup said 1st Edition PSA 9s were selling in the $61,000 range. A month earlier, collectors comparing recent results had noted PSA 9 prices all over the map, with one auction ending around $31,000 and others near $18,000 and $23,000, while PSA 10s held above $300,000.

Since then the grade has traded in a narrower band. PSA's own record of auction results lists PSA 9 copies at $25,806 on February 24, 2025, $24,851 on March 10, 2025 and $37,037 on September 19, 2025. The PSA 10 kept climbing, to $420,000 in March 2022 and a record $550,000 at auction in late 2025, so the gap between a 9 and a 10 has grown to more than tenfold.

How to identify it

A genuine English 1st Edition Charizard has the black '1st Edition' stamp to the lower left of the art, no drop shadow on the right and bottom edges of the art window, and thin HP and attack lettering. Collectors also separate 'thin stamp' from 'thick stamp' copies by the width of the numeral 1. Foreign-language 1st Editions are a different animal: they were printed with the Unlimited layout, drop shadow included, with only the stamp setting them apart.

The grade is the other half of the identity. PSA's census, as fetched in October 2026, lists 729 copies at PSA 9 and 123 at PSA 10, so a PSA 9 sits inside the top 852 of more than 5,600 graded. A December 2025 report counted 4,993 graded and 124 PSA 10s; counts change as cards are submitted, crossed over or regraded.

Why the 9 matters

The PSA 10 is the trophy, but the PSA 9 is where most serious buyers of this card actually shop, with roughly six times as many copies as the 10 and a price in the tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands. That makes it a useful read on the whole vintage Pokemon market.

Its history also shows how far the card has come. Accounts of 2017 differ: one puts a top-grade copy at $55,650, another says a PSA 10 still sold for under $20,000. A complete 1st Edition set, every card graded Gem Mint 10, sold for $107,010 in 2019, a fraction of what a single PSA 10 Charizard brings now. By the lower account, a PSA 9 now sells for more than a PSA 10 did in 2017.

The numbers

Set

Pokemon Base Set (English), 102 cards: 69 Pokemon (16 holo rares), 33 Trainer and Energy

Release

U.S. January 9, 1999; Japan October 20, 1996

Card

#4 of 102, holofoil rare; 120 HP; Energy Burn power; Fire Spin, 100 damage

English print runs

Four: 1st Edition, Shadowless, Unlimited, Unlimited with 1999-2000 copyright

Print run

Never disclosed by Wizards of the Coast

PSA 9 population

729 (PSA census as fetched October 2026)

PSA 10 population

123 (same census); 124 in a December 2025 report

Total graded

More than 5,600 per PSA's census as fetched; 4,993 in a December 2025 report

Timeline

1. Oct 20, 1996

   The original Pokemon card set is released in Japan by Media Factory.

2. Jan 9, 1999

   Wizards of the Coast releases the English Base Set in the U.S.; Charizard is card #4.

3. 2000

   After the first craze, the card market crashes and a Base Set Charizard falls to around $100.

4. Jun 2003

   Nintendo moves the card game license from Wizards of the Coast to The Pokemon Company.

5. 2017

   A top-grade 1st Edition Charizard sells for $55,650 by one account; another puts PSA 10s under $20,000 that year.

6. 2019

   A complete 1st Edition Base Set graded Gem Mint 10 sells for $107,010.

7. Dec 12, 2020

   A PSA 10 sells for $350,100 and an SGC 10 for $369,000 on the same day.

8. May 2021

   Collectors note PSA 9 results scattered from about $18,000 to about $31,000.

9. Jun 2021

   A market roundup puts 1st Edition PSA 9s in the $61,000 range.

10. Mar 2022

    A PSA 10 sells for $420,000, then a record for a Base Set Charizard.

11. Feb 24, 2025

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $25,806.

12. Mar 10, 2025

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $24,851.

13. Sep 19, 2025

    A PSA 9 sells at auction for $37,037.

14. 2025

    A PSA 10 sells at auction for $550,000, a record for the card, topping $420,000 from 2022.

The world in 1998

• Sep 8, 1998

  The English-language Pokemon cartoon premieres in U.S. syndication, 20 days before the Pokemon Red and Blue video games reach North America.

• Feb 1999

  The Pokemon cartoon moves to Kids' WB as a Saturday morning show.

• Feb 12, 1999

  The Senate acquits President Bill Clinton on both impeachment charges.

• Mar 31, 1999

  The Matrix opens in theaters.

• Jul 10, 1999

  Brandi Chastain's penalty kick beats China and wins the Women's World Cup for the United States.

• Nov 10, 1999

  Pokemon: The First Movie opens in North America; it takes $85.7 million in the U.S.

• Dec 31, 1999

  The United States hands administration of the Panama Canal to Panama.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, 1999 Pokemon Base Set 1st Edition Charizard #4 Holo PSA 9 is number 45 of 100 in the trading cards entries of the FLOAT 100. 97 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (72 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Wizards of the Coast never revealed how many 1st Edition cards it printed.
• Collectors split 1st Edition holos into 'thin stamp' and 'thick stamp' copies by the width of the 1 in the stamp.
• In every language but English, 1st Edition Base Set cards have the drop shadow; only English 1st Editions are shadowless.
• Right after the 1999 craze, a Base Set Charizard could be had for around $100.
• A complete 1st Edition Base Set graded Gem Mint 10 sold for $107,010 in 2019, less than a single PSA 10 Charizard brings today.
• Charizard's Fire Spin did 100 damage, a huge number for the first set, which helped make it the schoolyard prize.