Live Now on eBay: 1st Edition Raichu

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.

Which One Do You Have? The 3-Second Test

Most people who say “I have a 1st Edition Raichu” 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:

1. Right edge of the art box: a dark drop shadow = Unlimited or 4th Print. No shadow = keep going.
2. Left of the art box: a black “Edition 1” stamp = 1st Edition. No stamp + no shadow = Shadowless.
3. Bottom copyright line: ©1999-2000 = 4th Print. The font weight is the tiebreaker — thin HP text means an early print.

Raichu is a Stage 1 Lightning-type evolving from Pikachu — the line’s intended final form, drawn to look powerful. The 1999 art shows the orange mouse mid-charge against a starfield.

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

Raichu is card 14/102 in the 1999 English Base Set, one of the sixteen holofoil rares. Wizards of the Coast shipped the 1st Edition run from the January 9, 1999 launch until roughly early March — the shortest of the set’s printings, and the only one carrying the “Edition 1” stamp. Because this Pokémon is the evolved form of the franchise mascot, ordinary copies are not scarce; the chase has always been the top of the grade ladder, and one very strange variant.

That variant is the Prerelease Raichu. While Wizards was producing the Jungle Prerelease Clefable promo, a small number of Base Set Raichu were accidentally hot-stamped “PRERELEASE” as well. Wizards denied the cards for years. They were shown off quietly, spoofed, and written off as folklore until 2006, when a former employee produced photographic evidence; in 2023 CGC authenticated two survivors, and in 2025 an example sold at Heritage for $555,000 including premium — a record for an English-language Pokémon card. Collectors borrow one phrase for it: the “Holy Grail of Pokémon.”

Raichu’s standing with collectors was shaped as much by television as by print. Its anime debut as Lt. Surge’s arrogant, fully evolved partner in “Electric Shock Showdown” cast it as the foil to Ash’s Pikachu — the running example of a popular Pokémon stuck behind its own pre-evolution.

How Rare Is This Card?

Start with the two numbers that describe the whole card: roughly 3,229 graded copies exist in total, and about 120 of those are PSA 10s. That is a gem rate near 3.7% — 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.

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

Only one error is specifically documented on the Base Set 1st Edition Raichu: Bulbapedia records a handful of 1st Edition copies bearing a large ink splatter across the face and down the card. PSA’s Pokémon Error Guide lists no Raichu error at all under its 1999 Base Set or Shadowless entries, so the splatter is collector-documented rather than a catalogued variety — and Bulbapedia’s own entry is internally inconsistent, describing damage “down to the Thundershock attack” on a card that carries Agility and Thunder. Treat it as thin.

The Prerelease stamp is Base Set Raichu’s other famous anomaly, but it sits on an Unlimited-print card and was never part of the 1st Edition run. And a commonly confused neighbour: the bold-italic “Put Raichu on the Basic Pokémon” text is not on Base Set #14 — it belongs to the English Neo Revelation Raichu, #21/64.

What Makes This Card Collectible?

Raichu is a well-balanced holo — the intended evolution of the franchise’s most collected Pokémon, with a gem premium that is real and a caveat worth knowing.

• A mascot’s other half. Pikachu and Raichu were designed as one pair, before either was a mascot — the line’s stated final form.
• A Holy Grail halo. The CGC-authenticated Prerelease Raichu is among the hobby’s best stories, and it belongs to this species.
• Steady family demand. Interest flows from the Pikachu lineage, which is the most collected in the hobby.
• Thin at the top. Around 89 PSA 10s in the stamped printing, against a broad and liquid mid-grade market.

The Base Set hub shows where it sits alongside Pikachu, and the Unlimited printing is the inexpensive route to the same Sugimori artwork.

The Artist: Ken Sugimori

Ken Sugimori (b. 1966) finalised Raichu alongside Pikachu for the original games — both began as Atsuko Nishida’s designs — and drew the card’s sharp, aggressive portrait, a deliberate contrast with its pre-evolution. His Base Set Raichu reuses a 1996 watercolour over a photographic starfield.

Caleb's Collector Verdict

Raichu is one of the better-balanced buys in the set: a real gem premium, demand rooted in the franchise’s most collected family, and a floor that holds.

People Also Ask

Is my 1st Edition Raichu 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 — the gem premium is real. With about 120 PSA 10s and steady demand from Pikachu-adjacent collectors, the top grade commands a solid multiple. Grade it if the front is clean and the centring is good; a PSA 9 still sells well, so the downside is limited. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.

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