Haunter 1st Edition Base Set: Ghost of Lavender Town
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
Haunter is the apex of its line inside Base Set — Gastly is here, and Gengar did not arrive until Fossil. The anime then did something unusual for a middle stage: it gave Haunter a recurring role, befriending Ash across two episodes before staying with Sabrina.
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 Haunter printings you own, the 3-second test below settles it before you read any further.
| Grade | Market Price | Share of graded copies |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded (raw) | $67 | — |
| PSA 7 (NM) | $82 | 10.3% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $102 | 23.3% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $326 | 41.0% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $1,499 | 12.3% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 13.1% |
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 Haunter
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.
Loading current listings…
Which One Do You Have? The 3-Second Test
Most people who say “I have a 1st Edition Haunter” 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.
Haunter is a Stage 1 Psychic with 60 HP, evolving from Gastly, illustrated by Keiji Kinebuchi. Inspect the surface closely; the dark Psychic artwork hides light scuffing that shows under a grader's lamp.
The four printings of Base Set each have their own price and history: 1st Edition · Shadowless · Unlimited · 4th Print.
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
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
Haunter is card 29/102 in the English Base Set released by Wizards of the Coast on 9 January 1999. The set stops short of the line’s final stage: Gastly appears as 50/102 and Haunter as 29/102, while Gengar did not arrive until the Fossil expansion later that year. Inside Base Set, Haunter is the line’s apex.
The printing in scope is the 1st Edition, the first English run, which carries the black “Edition 1” stamp beside the lower-left of the artwork. It shares the Shadowless template, with no drop shadow behind the art box. Four English printings of the card exist, and the stamp is the only feature that separates 1st Edition from Shadowless, so faint or worn examples are easily confused.
The species had an unusually full first-generation life. Red and Blue players found Gastly in the Pokémon Tower at Lavender Town and could finish the line only by trading. In the anime, Ash befriended a Haunter across The Tower of Terror and Haunter versus Kadabra before leaving it with Sabrina — a recurring role for a middle stage. The Electric Tale of Pikachu recast the same species as the soul-eating giant Black Fog, and the prototype name Spectre survives from early planning.
Haunter was later included in Base Set 2 (43/130) and revisited in the 2016 Evolutions set (48/108), which borrows the artwork rather than repeating the design. The Base Set illustration is by Keiji Kinebuchi, one of the few 3D artists in the game’s earliest expansions, who worked in LightWave 3D and died around 2002.
How Rare Is This Card?
Read this card by its grade split rather than by a headline population. 12.3% of PSA-graded copies reach PSA 10, 13.1% come back grade 6 or below, and the rest land in between — which is what set the price ladder above.
Haunter only pays at PSA 9 or better — a 12.3% Gem Mint rate on a $67 raw copy, the narrowest of this group.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Haunter (1999) | ~205 | ~1,663 | 12.3% |
| 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
Cross-checking Bulbapedia’s error list, the PSA Pokémon Error Guide, PokéBeach’s misprint database and Elite Fourum’s Base Set guides turns up no catalogued error for the 1st Edition printing of Haunter 29/102.
The two widely circulated Haunter ink errors — the Blue Stain Haunter and the Yellow Stain Haunter — are documented on the Fossil set’s holo Haunter, card 6/62, not on this card. Elite Fourum’s English Base Set master guide does list two Haunter 29/102 hickeys, but assigns the black ghost hickey to Shadowless and the magenta face hickey to Unlimited. Base Set 1st Edition non-holos are known for set-wide stamp variation — grey, thin and smeared stamps, and stamp transfers on the reverse — but that is a printing-wide phenomenon, not an error catalogued to Haunter.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Haunter is collected for a first-generation life that a middle stage rarely gets:
- The line’s apex inside Base Set. Gastly appears here, and Gengar was held back until Fossil, so this is as far as the line goes in the first set.
- A recurring anime role for a middle stage. Befriended and then left with Sabrina across two early episodes — unusual attention for a second stage.
- The Black Fog. The Electric Tale of Pikachu recast the species entirely, as a soul-eating giant.
Gastly sits at 50 in the same set; the 1st Edition printing hub covers the stamp.
The Artist: Keiji Kinebuchi
Keiji Kinebuchi is one of the illustrators who defined the look of the original English Pokémon TCG, and Haunter is one of their Base Set contributions. This section will carry their full numbers when the artist guide lands.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Haunter is the ghost of Lavender Town: the point where Base Set’s Gastly line stops, and one of the few middle stages the animated series gave a recurring part to.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Haunter 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, the stamp rule (read together with the drop shadow and the 1995-99 copyright line, never alone), and the back. 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?
This one is the hardest grade in the group — it only pays at PSA 9 or better on 12.3% odds. Send it only if you are genuinely confident in the copy. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.