Electrode 1st Edition Base Set: The Bomb Ball
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
1st Edition · Base Set 1999 · Electrode #21/102
Electrode is the inverted half of Base Set’s disguise pair: a Poké Ball the wrong way up, white where Voltorb is red. Keiji Kinebuchi modelled it in 3D — one of very few digital artists working on the game’s first sets — and the same artwork was still being reprinted more than two decades later. Its famous face ink error sits on Unlimited copies.
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 Electrode printings you own, the 3-second test below settles it before you read any further.
| Grade | Market Price | Share of graded copies |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded (raw) | $54 | — |
| PSA 7 (NM) | $65 | 11.3% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $118 | 19.8% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $212 | 41.3% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $1,608 | 13.9% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 13.8% |
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 Electrode
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 Electrode” 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.
Electrode is a Stage 1 Lightning with 80 HP, evolving from Voltorb, illustrated by Keiji Kinebuchi. Lightning-type cards from this run often show surface scuffing rather than edge wear; check the face first.
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
Electrode is card 21/102 in the 1999 English Base Set, a non-holo Rare from the set’s opening print. The copy in scope is the 1st Edition: a black “Edition 1” stamp to the left of the artwork box, on shadowless stock with no drop shadow behind the art border. That stamp belongs to the first weeks of the 1999 release, before Wizards of the Coast removed it and kept printing.
Electrode and Voltorb are the set’s disguise pair, two Pokémon whose whole identity is looking like a Poké Ball. Electrode is the inverted one: white where Voltorb is red, and the volatile half of the pair in the games’ fiction, known for detonating when disturbed. In the anime it is remembered as a Poké Ball that stands up and identifies itself, which is where the community nickname Bomb Ball comes from.
Card 21 carries a 3D render by Keiji Kinebuchi, one of the very few digital artists working on the game’s first sets, who modelled his images in LightWave rather than drawing them by hand. The illustration was reused rather than replaced: the same art returns on Base Set 2 at 25/130 in 2000 and again, in foil, on the Pokémon Trading Card Game Classic reprint. The 1st Edition is that image’s first appearance.
As a non-holo Rare in a set collectors chase for its holos, card 21 is easily dismissed. In 1st Edition it is the opposite — part of the scarcest print run in the hobby’s founding set, with the stamp the only thing separating it from a copy worth a fraction as much.
How Rare Is This Card?
Read this card by its grade split rather than by a headline population. 13.9% of PSA-graded copies reach PSA 10, 13.8% 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.
Electrode’s graded population is mid-sized with a strong conversion to PSA 10, which is the profile that makes clean copies sensible to grade rather than merely to hold.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Electrode (1999) | ~179 | ~1,291 | 13.9% |
| 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
For 1st Edition copies of Base Set 21, no error is documented. The one catalogued Electrode misprint — the Blue Face Hickey, a cyan ink hickey on the right side of the face — is recorded in Bulbapedia’s error list, Elite Fourum’s English Base Set Master Misprint Guide and the Pokémon TCG error wiki, and all three place it on Unlimited copies only. CGC logs it as an “Additional Ink” error; PSA’s Pokémon Error Guide lists no Electrode error among its 1999 Base Set entries at all.
Two traps are worth naming. The famous Electrode “wrong artwork” error is not a Base Set fault: it belongs to Jungle #18, where every 1st Edition non-holo was printed with the Base Set illustration and the run was never corrected — Base Set 21 is the card whose art was borrowed, not the card that borrowed. And the “upside-down” quality attached to Electrode is the creature’s design, not a printing fault; genuine inverted cards exist only as a separate Unlimited sheet error.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Electrode is collected for the artwork rather than the number, and the artwork has an unusually long record:
- A Kinebuchi 3D render. One of very few digital illustrations in the game’s first sets, modelled in LightWave rather than drawn.
- An artwork still in print twenty-five years on. The same image carried into Base Set 2 and again into the Classic reprint.
- The disguise pair, completed inside one set. Voltorb sits at 67 and Electrode at 21, so the pair can be finished from Base Set alone.
The Magneton review covers another Kinebuchi holo, and the Base Set hub covers the run.
The Artist: Keiji Kinebuchi
Keiji Kinebuchi is one of the illustrators who defined the look of the original English Pokémon TCG, and Electrode is one of their Base Set contributions. This section will carry their full numbers when the artist guide lands.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Electrode is the artwork pick of this block: a Kinebuchi render from the set’s first weeks, on a card whose illustration outlasted the set by two decades, with the well-known ink error correctly placed on the Unlimited run.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Electrode 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?
A 13.9% gem rate on a $54 raw is a strong grading spread, so a clean copy is a fair submission. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.