Dratini 1st Edition Base Set: Kanto's Mirage Dragon
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
1st Edition · Base Set 1999 · Dratini #26/102
Dratini opens Base Set’s only dragon line, and in the original games it was genuinely hard to get: a Super Rod catch in the Safari Zone, or 2,800 coins at the Game Corner. Base Set translated that rarity only partially — Dratini arrived as an Uncommon, and the line’s final stage was held back entirely.
This page covers the 1st Edition printing specifically — the stamped, shadowless-stock version from the original January 1999 run. If you are unsure which of the Base Set Dratini printings you own, the 3-second test below settles it before you read any further.
| Grade | Market Price | Share of graded copies |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded (raw) | $50 | — |
| PSA 7 (NM) | $80 | 11.8% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $134 | 25.1% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $237 | 39.8% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $2,550 | 10.4% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 12.9% |
Prices and population shares: the Cards Worth Chasing ranking, PSA only, September 2026. Shares are of all PSA-graded copies of this card, so they sum to 100% with the grade-6-and-below row. Grading cost basis $59.99 (PSA Standard). Comps move — verify current sold prices before transacting.
Live Now on eBay: 1st Edition Dratini
What the card is actually being offered for right now. Every listing below is filtered to the genuine 1st Edition card — no repacks, mystery slabs, card skins, or multi-card lots. These are asking prices, not sold comps, so treat them as the top of the market rather than what copies are changing hands for. Buying through these links supports the site at no extra cost to you.
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Which One Do You Have? The 3-Second Test
Most people who say “I have a 1st Edition Dratini” don’t. Retail packs in 1999–2000 were overwhelmingly Unlimited printing — and that’s fine, it’s the same iconic card. The fast check, in order:
- Right edge of the art box: a dark drop shadow = Unlimited or 4th Print. No shadow = keep going.
- Left of the art box: a black “Edition 1” stamp = 1st Edition. No stamp + no shadow = Shadowless.
- Bottom copyright line: ©1999-2000 = 4th Print. The font weight is the tiebreaker — thin HP text means an early print.
Dratini is a Basic Colorless with 40 HP, illustrated by Ken Sugimori. Dratini's pale artwork shows edge whitening clearly; pick a copy with clean borders.
The four printings of Base Set each have their own price and history: 1st Edition · Shadowless · Unlimited · 4th Print.
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PSA 8 prices from PriceCharting sold-comp data, September 2026. Unlimited and 4th Print look nearly identical — the copyright year is the difference. Each printing is its own card with its own price and history; see every printing: 1st Edition · Shadowless · Unlimited · 4th Print.
About This Card and Set
Dratini is card 26/102 in the English Base Set: an Uncommon, non-holo Pokémon card, and in this printing a 1st Edition — part of the stamped, shadowless-stock first run that opened the English game in 1999. There is no foil, no drop shadow behind the illustration window, lighter typography than the later Unlimited cards, and the black “Edition 1” mark placed beside the artwork.
Base Set is where the original dragon line begins, and Dratini is its first stage. That mattered more in 1999 than it does now. In Red and Blue, Dratini was among the hardest creatures in the game to obtain — a 2,800-coin prize at the Celadon Game Corner, a Super Rod catch in the Safari Zone, and a long climb through two evolutions before Dragonite appeared. The Pokédex line printed across this card, about a mythical Pokémon and a colony found underwater, is the Red and Blue entry.
In Japanese the creature is Miniryu, “miniature” plus ryū, and its evolution is Hakuryu, “white dragon” — a name that reads oddly against the blue-and-white body. Dratini’s animated debut came in a Japan-only episode that never reached English audiences, and is often confused with a different episode entirely.
Base Set did not complete the line. Dragonite was not in the set at all, arriving later in Fossil, so the first English set gave collectors the front two-thirds of the only dragon family in the game. Ken Sugimori drew card 26; Dragonair at card 18 is by Mitsuhiro Arita, so the line does not share an artist.
How Rare Is This Card?
Read this card by its grade split rather than by a headline population. 10.4% of PSA-graded copies reach PSA 10, 12.9% come back grade 6 or below, and the rest land in between — which is what set the price ladder above. The odds column is the number that matters, because high-grade supply is what the market actually pays for.
A mid-sized graded population with a solid conversion to PSA 10, on a raw cost at the low end — the combination that makes the cheapest card in a famous line the sensible one to submit.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Dratini (1999) | ~185 | ~1,778 | 10.4% |
| Charizard ex #199, S&V 151 (2023) | 29,679 | 102,490 | ~29% |
PriceCharting population data, September 2026. The modern row is a combined PSA + CGC count; the 1999 row is PSA, the way it is normally quoted.
For scale, a comparable modern chase card converts to a gem grade at roughly 29%. Modern cards grade far better than vintage ones — not because they are better cards, but because a 1999 card was printed before grading was mainstream and then spent two decades in a binder.
Source: the PSA-only figures behind the Cards Worth Chasing ranking, September 2026. Two caveats stay attached to every population figure on this site. Graded counts are submission tallies, not unique cards — resubmissions inflate the total. And the census is a floor, not a final number.
Known Error Cards
Nothing is catalogued for this card. Four independent references — Bulbapedia’s “Error cards” page, PSA’s Pokémon Error Guide, PokéBeach’s misprint database, and Elite Fourum’s WOTC corrected-errors guide with its companion English Base Set misprint guide — list no error for Dratini 26 in any printing, and none ties the Base Set dragon line to a named misprint. The Base Set errors those sources do record belong to other cards: Blastoise, Beedrill, Chansey, Charizard, Diglett, Ninetales and Wartortle among them.
Three traps are worth naming. The widely repeated “Length” text error is documented for Kakuna and Bulbasaur, not Dratini, and gets spread across other commons by assumption. A Topsun Dratini carrying a “Blue Back No Number” error is a different manufacturer and a different set entirely. And the “thick stamp” distinction is documented for the run’s holofoil cards; sellers applying it to a non-holo Uncommon are using loose terminology. One caveat sits at set level rather than card level: 1st Edition commons and uncommons are documented with transferred or smeared stamps, and Dratini is an Uncommon within that run, so a copy can carry one — a printing-wide phenomenon, not a Dratini error.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Dratini is collected as the opening of the one dragon line Base Set carried:
- The start of the only dragon line in the set. Base Set carried exactly two dragon cards, and this is the first.
- Genuinely hard to get in the games. A Super Rod catch or 2,800 Game Corner coins, with two long evolutions after it.
- A line the set never finished. Dragonite was held back until Fossil, which closes Dratini and Dragonair as a pair.
The line continues at the Dragonair review; the Base Set hub covers the full run.
The Artist: Ken Sugimori
Ken Sugimori is one of the illustrators who defined the look of the original English Pokémon TCG, and Dratini is one of their Base Set contributions. This section will carry their full numbers when the artist guide lands.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Dratini is the access card of this block: the first stage of the only dragon line Base Set contained, and the cheapest way into one of the franchise’s most recognisable families.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Dratini real or fake?
The 1999 Base Set cards are the most counterfeited in the hobby, and for a raw copy worth real money you cannot settle it from a photo. The checks that catch most fakes: the light test (a genuine card is essentially opaque — a faint dark core line between the layers; cheap fakes glow through), the stamp rule (a real 1st Edition stamp is crisp and sits under the ink, and counterfeiters add stamps to Unlimited cards — read it with the drop shadow and the 1995-99 copyright line, never alone), and the back (fakes perfect the front and neglect the Poké Ball, the blue tone and the repeated text). Above a few hundred dollars, a raw copy should get professional pre-authentication. The full fake-detection walkthrough covers all of it.
Should I grade this card?
The odds support grading — a gem rate near 10% on a $50 raw — but the absolute reward is small, so treat it as a collection submission rather than a money one. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.