1999 Pokemon Base Set Unlimited Charizard #4 Holo PSA 10

The everyday Charizard

Wizards of the Coast brought the Pokemon Trading Card Game to the United States with the English Base Set on January 9, 1999, a translation of the Japanese set Media Factory had released on October 20, 1996. The English cards came in four print runs: the stamped 1st Edition, the unstamped Shadowless, the Unlimited, and a late Unlimited with a 1999-2000 copyright line.

Unlimited is the third run and the one that changed the look. It added a drop shadow around the right and bottom of the illustration window and thicker HP and attack text. Wizards never said how many it printed, but the grading numbers tell the story: PSA has graded more than 105,000 Unlimited Charizards, against roughly 14,700 Shadowless and 5,700 1st Edition copies on the same census.

Card #4 is the same Charizard in every run: Mitsuhiro Arita's art, 120 HP, the Energy Burn power and a 100-damage Fire Spin attack.

The card in every binder

Unlimited was the printing that met the full force of Pokemania. Early in 1999 Wizards sold 400,000 packs in less than six weeks. The cartoon had premiered in syndication on September 8, 1998, moved to Kids' WB in February 1999, and by November 1999 was reaching half the boys aged 6 to 11 watching TV at 10 a.m. Pokemon: The First Movie opened November 10, 1999, and took $85.7 million in the U.S.

Those kids played with their cards, traded them and carried them in binders and pockets. That is why the Unlimited Charizard is plentiful in middle grades and scarce at the very top: a card had to survive 25 years without a scratch on its holofoil, a soft corner or a whitened edge.

The market for the cards crashed about a year after the craze began; Wizards laid off 100 employees, and in June 2003 the license moved from Wizards to The Pokemon Company.

Common card, rare grade

PSA's census, as fetched in October 2026, lists 490 Unlimited Charizards at PSA 10 against 8,475 at PSA 9 and 16,324 at PSA 8; its Condition Census line on the same page shows 491, a one-card difference that reflects how often these counts change. That puts the Gem Mint rate under half of one percent.

Even so, there are about four times as many Unlimited PSA 10s as 1st Edition PSA 10s (123) and more than eight times as many as Shadowless PSA 10s (58). That spread explains the price ladder: a 1st Edition PSA 10 has sold for $550,000, a Shadowless PSA 10 for a $45,322 winning bid in 2025, and an Unlimited PSA 10 for tens of thousands of dollars or less.

What a Gem Mint copy costs

PSA's record of auction results lists an Unlimited PSA 10 selling for $30,100 on May 4, 2026. Other recorded PSA 10 sales in the year before ranged from $18,055 in December 2025 and $20,000 in January 2026 to $34,755 in April 2026 and $37,100 in March 2026, and a PSA 10 sold for $28,750 on October 1, 2026.

Lower grades fall away quickly. PSA's recorded results put PSA 9 copies between $1,725 and $2,250 in late 2025, then $3,150 in June 2026 and $3,850 in August 2026, while PSA 8 copies brought $1,450 or less in 2026. The jump from 9 to 10 is roughly tenfold.

How to identify an Unlimited

An Unlimited Charizard has no '1st Edition' stamp, and it has a visible gray drop shadow along the right and bottom edges of the art window, with bolder HP and attack lettering than the first two runs. The late Unlimited printing is identical except that its copyright line reads 1999-2000 instead of 1999.

The same Arita artwork was reprinted later in Base Set 2, Legendary Collection and, in 2021, the 25th-anniversary Celebrations set, which adds an anniversary logo and drops the Wizards of the Coast copyright. Those reprints are separate cards; only the 1999 Base Set printing is this entry.

The numbers

Set

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

Card

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

Print run

Third of four English runs; size never disclosed

PSA 10 population

490 (PSA census as fetched October 2026; 491 on the page's Condition Census line)

PSA 9 population

8,475 (same census)

PSA 8 population

16,324 (same census)

Total graded by PSA

More than 105,000 (same census)

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, starting with the 1st Edition run.

3. Nov 10, 1999

   Pokemon: The First Movie opens in North America at the height of Pokemania.

4. 2000

   The card craze collapses; a Base Set Charizard falls to around $100.

5. Jun 2003

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

6. 2021

   The Celebrations set reprints the Base Set Charizard art with a 25th-anniversary logo.

7. Dec 22, 2025

   An Unlimited PSA 10 sells for $18,055.

8. Mar 26, 2026

   An Unlimited PSA 10 sells for $37,100.

9. May 4, 2026

   An Unlimited PSA 10 sells at auction for $30,100.

10. Oct 1, 2026

    An Unlimited PSA 10 sells for $28,750.

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 Unlimited Charizard #4 Holo PSA 10 is number 50 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 (74 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• PSA has graded more than 105,000 Unlimited Base Set Charizards, far more than any other printing.
• Fewer than half of one percent of graded Unlimited Charizards earn a PSA 10.
• The drop shadow around the art window is the quickest way to tell an Unlimited from the earlier printings.
• A late Unlimited run differs only in its copyright line, 1999-2000 instead of 1999.
• The 2021 Celebrations reprint uses the same art but drops the Wizards of the Coast copyright.