Ninetales 1st Edition Base Set: The Black-Flame Printing
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
Ninetales is a mid-tier holo with a thin gem population and the one Base Set holo whose famous design error lives on a different printing entirely. Raw copies trade around $431, while a PSA 10 gem has cleared $22,285 — the gap between those two numbers is the whole story of this card.
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 Ninetales printings you own, the 3-second test below settles it before you read any further.
| Grade | Market Price | Share of graded copies |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded (raw) | $416 | — |
| PSA 7 (NM) | $836 | 15.8% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $1,315 | 20.7% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $2,411 | 22.1% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $22,206 | 3.1% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 38.3% |
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 Ninetales
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.
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Which One Do You Have? The 3-Second Test
Most people who say “I have a 1st Edition Ninetales” 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.
Ninetales is a Stage 1 Fire-type evolving from Vulpix. The 1st Edition art renders the flames around it in black — the original colouring, which most Unlimited copies changed to blue.
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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
Ninetales is card 12 of 102 in the 1999 Base Set and one of the original sixteen holofoil rares. For most of the late 1990s it lived in Charizard’s shadow — and it has since quietly outperformed it in one respect: condition. Wizards stamped and printed 1st Edition copies for only the opening weeks of the January 9, 1999 release, and the pale fox against a dark, fire-lit field made every scratch, print line and centring flaw show. PSA has graded roughly 2,300 examples of the 1st Edition holo and awarded Gem Mint 10 to only about 68 of them.
Ninetales arrived with folklore already attached. The species was built on the kitsune — specifically the nine-tailed kyūbi no kitsune of Japanese myth, the thousand-year fox of Inari and, in older tellings, the courtesan Tamamo no Mae. No source ties that lore to the card’s composition directly, but it reached television: a 2002 episode, “Just Waiting on a Friend,” hangs entirely on a Ninetales that waited two hundred years for a trainer who looked exactly like Brock.
What keeps the card a subject in the hobby is its print lineage. The 1st Edition and Shadowless runs carried a black flame in the artwork, which Wizards changed for the mass Unlimited run — and a small number of early Unlimited copies escaped with the old black flame still on them. That variant, quietly hoarded for years, became official when CGC recognised it in February 2021.
How Rare Is This Card?
Start with the two numbers that describe the whole card: roughly 2,562 graded copies exist in total, and about 81 of those are PSA 10s. That is a gem rate near 3.2% — and the gem rate, not the raw population, is the number a collector should actually read. High-grade supply is what the market pays for.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Ninetales (1999) | ~81 | ~2,562 | 3.2% |
| 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, compare it with for scale, take a modern chase card printed and slabbed within a year of release: it can carry tens of thousands of gem-grade copies against a gem rate near 29%. The modern card has many times this card’s gem supply at several times its gem rate, not because it is a better card, but because a 1999 card was printed before grading was mainstream and then spent two decades in a binder, on a card printed and slabbed within a year of release. The modern card has many times the gem supply, at several times this card's gem rate — not because it is a better card, but because a 1999 card was printed before grading was mainstream and then spent two decades in a binder. A vintage gem count is not comparable to a modern one.
Population source: PriceCharting, September 2026. The vintage figure is PSA; the modern figure is a combined PSA + CGC count, which is how each is normally quoted.
Two caveats stay attached to every population figure on this site. Graded counts are submission tallies, not unique cards — resubmissions inflate the total, so the number of genuinely distinct gem copies is lower. And the census is a floor, not a final number: it grows with every submission wave.
Known Error Cards
The famous one is not a 1st Edition card. The “No Damage Ninetales” — the missing damage figure beside Fire Blast — is documented on the Shadowless printing, traced to sealed Brushfire theme decks, with physical proof surfacing in 2019. The logic is why it never appears on 1st Edition: had the fault come from booster sheets, 1st Edition copies would carry it too, and they do not. The “Black Flame” variant is likewise an Unlimited story.
For the 1st Edition specifically, no Ninetales-only error is documented in Bulbapedia, PSA’s guide, PokéBeach’s database or Elite Fourum’s masters guide. What touches it is set-wide: grey or low-ink 1st Edition stamps, stamp smears, and mirrored stamp transfers on card backs — notorious on the 32 rares, but catalogued by the printing, never by the card.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Ninetales is a mid-tier holo whose print story is richer than its price, with its most-hunted variety on the printing next door.
- 1st Edition is the clean print. The famous “No Damage” sibling is Shadowless, so a 1st Edition copy is the original-art, uncorrupted version of a card later runs complicated.
- The black-flame marker. 1st Edition and Shadowless keep the authentic black flame; most Unlimited copies went blue — a visible way to place your copy in the print timeline.
- An unmatched background. Unlike many Sugimori Base Set cards, Ninetales’ stock-photo source has no confirmed match — an open thread for the archaeology-minded.
- Thin at the top. Around 81 PSA 10s across the stamped printing.
The Base Set hub lays all four printings out; if it is the artwork you want rather than the stamp, the Unlimited run is the affordable copy.
The Artist: Ken Sugimori
Ken Sugimori (b. 1966) finalised Ninetales for the original games — the creature’s first design was Atsuko Nishida’s — and drew the card’s soft watercolour fox, nine tails curled, set against an amber field. It is one of twelve Base Set holos by his hand, and one of the more composed illustrations in the set.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Ninetales is a mid-tier holo with a better story than most: a genuine print-run colour change, a famous error on the adjacent printing, and an unmatched background.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Ninetales real or fake?
The 1999 Base Set holos are the most counterfeited cards 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 — but a faint grey “ghost” stamp can be an authentic variant, so read it with the 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 with the CGC forensic case study.
Should I grade this card?
Yes for a clean 1st Edition copy. A standard 1st Edition Ninetales has a thin but not exceptional gem case — about 81 PSA 10s. The Shadowless “No Damage” version is a different proposition entirely: worth grading, but only if the missing text is genuine and unaltered. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.