Scoop Up 1st Edition Base Set: The First Recall
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
Scoop Up has the shortest text in Base Set doing some of the most work: it lifts one of your own Pokémon back into your hand, clearing every damage counter and every status on it. The Basic comes back ready to be played again. Raw copies sit near $66, with a 17.6% 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 Scoop Up printings you own, the 3-second test below settles it before you read any further.
| Grade | Market Price | Share of graded copies |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded (raw) | $66 | — |
| PSA 7 (NM) | $58 | 7.1% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $65 | 21.0% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $154 | 46.1% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $850 | 17.6% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 8.1% |
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 Scoop Up
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 Scoop Up” 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.
Scoop Up is a Trainer card illustrated by Keiji Kinebuchi. Trainers from this run are usually sound; check centring since supply allows selectivity.
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
Scoop Up is card 78/102 in the 1999 English Base Set, a Rare Trainer with art by Keiji Kinebuchi. The printing in scope is the 1st Edition — the first-run card carrying the black “Edition 1” stamp on shadowless stock, with the thinner HP and attack text and no drop shadow behind the illustration window.
What sets Scoop Up apart among Base Set Trainers is the action it introduced: picking one of your own Pokémon up off the table and returning it to hand. Only the Basic card came back; everything resting on it went to the discard pile. That self-return effect was new to the game in 1996 and it never left — the same idea, renamed and reworded, has been reissued across three decades. Later versions changed the bargain, adding a coin flip and eventually returning the whole stack rather than just the Basic, but the underlying move stayed.
The English name is a localisation. The Japanese original, from the 1996 Expansion Pack, is named for recovery rather than scooping, and the card’s descendants kept that family name; Wizards of the Coast chose a livelier English phrase, and it is the English phrase that stuck. The card was reprinted in Base Set 2 (107/130) and Legendary Collection (104/110), but was conspicuously left out of 2016’s Evolutions, which did restore other Base Set Trainers.
Community memory settles on the wording. Readers have long noted that the English instruction to discard cards “attached” to the returned Pokémon reads awkwardly for evolution cards, which are stacked rather than attached — an ambiguity the Japanese text avoided, and one that rules threads were still unpicking years later.
How Rare Is This Card?
Read this card by its grade split rather than by a headline population. 17.6% of PSA-graded copies reach PSA 10, 8.1% come back grade 6 or below, and the rest land in between — which is what set the price ladder above.
A 17.6% Gem Mint rate on a $66 raw copy — among the better odds of this Trainer group.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Scoop Up (1999) | ~178 | ~1,010 | 17.6% |
| 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 Scoop Up error is catalogued for any English Base Set printing, 1st Edition included. The Base Set error lists at Bulbapedia, PSA’s Pokémon Error Guide, the PokéBeach misprint database and Elite Fourum’s English Base Set Master Misprint Guide name cards such as Blastoise, Ninetales, Vulpix, Wartortle and Diglett; Scoop Up does not appear on any of them.
What can attach to the card is generic to the 1st Edition run rather than to Scoop Up itself: low-ink “grey” stamps, inverted or transferred stamps on the reverse, and smeared or misaligned front stamps occur across 1st Edition cards generally. The grey-stamp phenomenon is noted as especially thin among the set’s rares, the tier Scoop Up belongs to. These are set-level printing phenomena, not a named Scoop Up error.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Scoop Up is collected because the move it introduced became permanent:
- A move the game never abandoned. The self-return idea has been reissued across three decades under several names — a run unmatched by any other Base Set Trainer effect.
The Electabuzz review covers a card the deck was built around; 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 Scoop Up is one of their Base Set contributions. This section will carry their full numbers when the artist guide lands.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Scoop Up is the reset card: the cheapest way in Base Set to undo a bad turn, and the origin of an effect the game has never stopped reprinting.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Scoop Up 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?
Strong odds at 17.6% on a $66 raw; a clean copy is a fair submission. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.