Porygon 1st Edition Base Set: The Stamped Scapegoat
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
1st Edition · Base Set 1999 · Porygon #39/102
Porygon carries two distinctions almost no other card can match. It is the only card in Base Set illustrated by someone outside the set’s three main artists — Tomoaki Imakuni drew exactly one of the 102. And it is the creature blamed for a broadcast incident it did not cause.
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 Porygon printings you own, the 3-second test below settles it before you read any further.
| Grade | Market Price | Share of graded copies |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded (raw) | $28 | — |
| PSA 7 (NM) | $40 | 9.1% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $65 | 22.6% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $165 | 43.7% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $1,599 | 14.6% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 10.0% |
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 Porygon
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 Porygon” 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.
Porygon is a Basic Colorless with 30 HP, illustrated by Tomoaki Imakuni. At this price you can be selective — look for a well-centred copy with a clean face.
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
Porygon 39/102 sits in the 1999 English Base Set as an Uncommon, and as the set’s lone exception: the only one of the 102 cards illustrated by someone outside the trio of Ken Sugimori, Mitsuhiro Arita and Keiji Kinebuchi. The credit reads Tomoaki Imakuni. This entry concerns the 1st Edition printing, the first English run and the scarcest of the four.
The 1st Edition carries a black “Edition 1” roundel to the lower left of the artwork and shares the shadowless layout of the print that followed it: no drop shadow along the art frame, lighter type, and the extended copyright line. Neither the shadowless stock nor the stamp is an error; both were deliberate choices of the first print run.
What fixes the card in the wider culture is a single broadcast. On 16 December 1997, TV Tokyo aired an episode built around Porygon, the 38th of the anime’s first season. Around twenty-one minutes in, an explosion was animated with a rapid red-and-blue strobe. Hundreds of children across Japan were taken to hospital; the incident became known as Pokémon Shock, the anime went on a four-month hiatus, and the episode was withdrawn and has never aired again anywhere.
Porygon and its evolutions have not headlined an episode since, even though the strobe came from Pikachu’s attack rather than from anything Porygon did — a misdirected blame the creature has carried for nearly three decades while remaining fully present everywhere else in the franchise.
How Rare Is This Card?
Read this card by its grade split rather than by a headline population. 14.6% of PSA-graded copies reach PSA 10, 10.0% 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.
Porygon has a 14.6% Gem Mint rate on one of the lowest raw costs of this group — $28 against a PSA-10 price near $1,599.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Porygon (1999) | ~358 | ~2,452 | 14.6% |
| 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
No error is catalogued for the 1st Edition printing of Porygon 39/102. The only Porygon-specific fault recorded in English Base Set is a press-doubling sheet fault on Unlimited Uncommons, where Porygon appears doubled alongside Jynx and Poké Flute; the Elite Fourum English Base Set master misprint guide files it under “Double Prints” and assigns it to the Unlimited run, not to 1st Edition.
Bulbapedia’s Error cards page, PSA’s Pokémon Error Guide and the PokéBeach misprint database carry no Porygon entry at all, and the Elite Fourum masters guide for corrected WOTC errors records nothing for this card in any printing. Bulbapedia does document a general 1st Edition category of smeared, misaligned or transferred stamp ink on stamped commons and uncommons, but all four sources agree on attributing no such instance to Porygon. A lone printer hickey does not count as a documented error.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Porygon is collected for two distinctions that make it unlike any other card in the set:
- One artist, one card. Tomoaki Imakuni illustrated exactly one of Base Set’s 102 cards, and this is it.
- The first artificial Pokémon. A design deliberately set apart from the rest of the roster, built from geometric primitives.
- Blamed for a broadcast it did not cause. The strobe that ended an episode came from Pikachu’s attack, and the creature has carried the association ever since.
The 1st Edition printing hub explains the stamp, and the Base Set hub covers all 102 cards.
The Artist: Tomoaki Imakuni
Tomoaki Imakuni is one of the illustrators who defined the look of the original English Pokémon TCG, and Porygon is one of their Base Set contributions. This section will carry their full numbers when the artist guide lands.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Porygon is the card with the heaviest story attached: the only Base Set illustration by an outside artist, and the creature that has spent nearly thirty years carrying the blame for a broadcast it had nothing to do with.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Porygon 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 are strong and the raw cost is the lowest here, so the fee is the whole argument. Worth it for the collection; the absolute return is thin. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.