Item Finder 1st Edition Base Set: The Dowsing Machine
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
Item Finder does one thing well: it trades two cards from hand for a Trainer pulled back out of the discard pile. In a set where Trainers were the strongest cards, that made it a quiet staple — and the effect was later rebuilt as the ACE SPEC Dowsing Machine. Raw copies sit near $50, with a 12.1% Gem Mint rate.
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 Item Finder 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) | $58 | 7.7% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $142 | 21.0% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $172 | 48.0% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $1,152 | 12.1% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 11.2% |
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 Item Finder
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 Item Finder” 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.
Item Finder is a Trainer card illustrated by Keiji Kinebuchi. Trainers from this run are usually well preserved; demand a sharply centred copy since supply allows it.
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
Item Finder is card 74/102 in the English Base Set, printed by Wizards of the Coast from 9 January 1999; the printing in scope is the stamped, shadowless-stock 1st Edition, the earliest English form. It began in Japan’s Expansion Pack in October 1996, and Wizards reprinted it once, as Base Set 2 #103/130, under the same name and effect.
The effect is why it endures. Base Set had no Supporter, Stadium or Item subtypes — every non-Pokémon card was simply a Trainer, usable without limit. Item Finder traded two other cards from hand for a Trainer retrieved from the discard pile, and in a set where only it and Energy Retrieval offered a route back out of the discard, that carried real weight. Its printed wording has never been changed; the later shift was interpretive, a standing ruling reading old “Trainer” references against the modern Item, Supporter and Stadium categories.
The name is a collector detail. The English card reads “Item Finder” where the video-game item is the one-word “Itemfinder,” and the Japanese card’s name translates closer to “Dowsing Machine” — the name later reused for the same effect’s 2013 ACE SPEC reissue, which collectors routinely conflate with the original.
Keiji Kinebuchi illustrated it, as he did much of the set’s Trainer art, drawing the Itemfinder key item from the first Pokémon games. It sits with Computer Search and Professor Oak among the Base Set Trainers whose reputation has aged into lore; it remains legal in Unlimited, absent from Standard and Expanded through rotation rather than any ban.
How Rare Is This Card?
Read this card by its grade split rather than by a headline population. 12.1% of PSA-graded copies reach PSA 10, 11.2% come back grade 6 or below, and the rest land in between — which is what set the price ladder above.
Item Finder sits at a 12.1% Gem Mint rate on a $50 raw.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Item Finder (1999) | ~132 | ~1,095 | 12.1% |
| 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-cards page, PSA’s Pokémon Error Guide, the PokéBeach error and misprint database, and Elite Fourum’s WOTC corrected-errors guide and English Base Set master misprint guide turns up no catalogued error for Item Finder in any printing — none for the 1st Edition, and none for Shadowless, Unlimited or Base Set 2 either.
Every named Base Set error belongs to a different card: Blastoise’s missing Stage, the “D.efending” Beedrill, the Wartortle evolution box, the sideways Fighting symbol on Diglett, No Damage Ninetales, and the various ink dots and hickeys. The 1st Edition stamp itself produced documented anomalies across the set — smeared or misaligned stamps and back-stamp ink transfer — but these are recorded generically across 1st Edition cards, not attributed to this one. For Item Finder 1st Edition the accurate statement is that none is documented, and the sources agree.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Item Finder is collected for the idea it carried rather than for its own artwork:
- The ancestor of a modern card type. The effect was strong enough that Wizards later reprinted it as an ACE SPEC — the first step on the road to how the game handles powerful one-offs today.
The Super Energy Removal review covers another of the set’s Trainers; the Base Set hub covers the rest.
The Artist: Keiji Kinebuchi
Keiji Kinebuchi is one of the illustrators who defined the look of the original English Pokémon TCG, and Item Finder is one of their Base Set contributions. This section will carry their full numbers when the artist guide lands.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Item Finder is the recursion card: a cheap, unglamorous Trainer whose effect proved strong enough that the game kept rebuilding it, most recently as an ACE SPEC under a different name.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Item Finder 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?
Middling odds at 12.1% on a $50 raw; a clean copy is a reasonable submission rather than a compelling one. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.