Wartortle 1st Edition Base Set: Symbol of Longevity
Reviewed by Caleb Stapel · Collector · Updated September 2026
1st Edition · Base Set 1999 · Wartortle #42/102
Wartortle’s design is built on a real legend: the Japanese minogame, a turtle said to live ten thousand years, which is where its furred tail and feathered ears come from. The lineage behind the card matters too — Atsuko Nishida designed the creature, Ken Sugimori drew it.
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 Wartortle printings you own, the 3-second test below settles it before you read any further.
| Grade | Market Price | Share of graded copies |
|---|---|---|
| Ungraded (raw) | $75 | — |
| PSA 7 (NM) | $189 | 18.5% |
| PSA 8 (NM-MT) | $237 | 24.8% |
| PSA 9 (Mint) | $530 | 29.2% |
| PSA 10 (Gem Mint) | $9,157 | 4.9% |
| Grade 6 or below | — | 22.6% |
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 Wartortle
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 Wartortle” 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.
Wartortle is a Stage 1 Water with 70 HP, evolving from Squirtle, illustrated by Ken Sugimori. Inspect the surface closely; Wartortle's blue artwork hides light scuffing that shows badly under a grader's lamp.
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
Of the four English printings of Wartortle — card 42 of 102 in the 1999 Base Set — the 1st Edition is the one collectors mean when they say “first print.” It carries the black “Edition 1” stamp beside the artwork and sits on Wizards of the Coast’s original shadowless template: no drop shadow behind the art box, brighter and slightly more zoomed-in illustration, and the extended copyright line that marks the very first run.
Wartortle is an Uncommon, and a set that reserved its holofoil for the sixteen featured cards never intended card 42 to be scarce. Its standing rests on the printing rather than the pull rate: the card appeared in the first run before the base template was revised, and a prototype League giveaway deck carried the same artwork on a red-bordered back. The 1st Edition stamp, applied to only part of that opening batch, is what separates it from the far more common Unlimited printing.
What earns the card its own page is the lineage behind it. The illustration is credited to Ken Sugimori, the franchise’s long-serving art director, while the creature itself was designed by Atsuko Nishida. Her Wartortle is built around a furred, wavy tail and feather-like ears, details tied to the Japanese minogame legend of a turtle said to live ten thousand years — the same longevity motif that recurs throughout the species’ game text and gave Wartortle much of its identity.
For an unassuming Uncommon in the set that launched the English game, that combination — first-print status and a design with a story attached — is the appeal.
How Rare Is This Card?
Read this card by its grade split rather than by a headline population. 4.9% of PSA-graded copies reach PSA 10, 22.6% 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.
The odd shape of this card is that its PSA-10 price sits in holo territory while its raw cost stays low and its graded population is a fraction of the starter basics either side of it. That gap is the whole reason the card is interesting.
| Card | PSA 10s | Total graded | Gem rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Edition Wartortle (1999) | ~127 | ~2,600 | 4.9% |
| 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
Every Wartortle misprint in the reference literature sits on a printing other than the 1st Edition, and this is the most frequently misreported error in the set. The best known is the Evolution Box Error, and it belongs to the English Unlimited print: a short run in which Wartortle’s own image appears in the evolution box where Squirtle should be. PSA, CGC and Beckett each catalogue it under a variant label, and Bulbapedia, PSA’s error guide, Elite Fourum and the collector literature all place it on Unlimited.
A blue ink hickey near the top right is likewise recorded on Unlimited copies, and the “Black Dash” line across the artwork has so far been reported only on Shadowless copies. No error is catalogued for the 1st Edition printing itself, and the sources agree on that. PSA’s guide introduces much of the confusion by listing the Evolution Box Error under “1999 Base Set” without flagging the printing. One further trap: the Portuguese 1st Edition and Unlimited prints both carry the error, so a stamped card with the wrong evolution box is almost certainly Portuguese rather than English, and should be checked by its language.
What Makes This Card Collectible?
Wartortle is collected for a design legend and a first-print status:
- Ten thousand years. The furred tail and feather ears come from the minogame, the Japanese turtle said to live ten thousand years.
- A design credit split two ways. Atsuko Nishida designed the creature; Ken Sugimori drew the card. They are different jobs and often conflated.
- The famous error is not on this printing. The Evolution Box Error belongs to Unlimited — and to both Portuguese printings, which is a separate trap.
The line is covered at Squirtle and Blastoise; the Base Set hub places all three.
The Artist: Ken Sugimori
Ken Sugimori is one of the illustrators who defined the look of the original English Pokémon TCG, and Wartortle is one of their Base Set contributions. This section will carry their full numbers when the artist guide lands.
Caleb's Collector Verdict
Wartortle is the anomaly of the Blastoise line: a quiet Uncommon attached to a holo’s reward, whose most famous error sits on a printing that is not this one.
People Also Ask
Is my 1st Edition Wartortle 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?
Wartortle is the highest-upside grading candidate of this group and also the thinnest on odds — a small share of graded copies reach PSA 10, which is exactly why the top grade pays what it does. Worth submitting a genuinely sharp copy; the maths does not favour a marginal one. See Should You Grade Pokémon Cards? for the fee maths, and check a raw copy with the CardGrader scanner before sending it in.