Shadowless: the brief English Base Set without the shadow

Only a few months in 1999, only in English: cards without the shadow on the art box. There is no German or French Shadowless card.

The English Base Set by Wizards of the Coast exists in three versions you can tell apart from the front: 1st Edition with the “Edition 1” stamp below the left of the art box, Shadowless without stamp and without shadow, and Unlimited, where a dark drop shadow sits on the right edge of the yellow art frame. A late print with “©1999-2000” in the copyright line followed. The name “Shadowless” was coined by collectors; Wizards never called it that.

The first English cards were not even the 1st Edition. In December 1998 Wizards handed out demo packs of 24 cards to retailers, unstamped and without shadow. The official launch followed on 9 January 1999 with the 1st Edition, after which the same plates kept running without the stamp. By the Jungle set in June 1999 at the latest, every new card had the shadow, and the Base Set was only printed that way from then on. Why Wizards added the shadow was never explained. “For more depth” is a guess, and so is every print-run figure: Wizards never published quantities.

Shadowless can be identified by three things. First, the shadow on the right and bottom of the art frame is missing. Second, HP and attack text are printed noticeably thinner than on Unlimited. Third, the copyright line ends “© 1995, 96, 98, 99 Nintendo”; Unlimited drops the “99”. That is the only test for Trainer and Energy cards, which have no art frame. Pikachu with red cheeks exists only in 1st Edition and Shadowless. Border colour or holo pattern are not reliable indicators.

All English 1st Edition Base Set cards are shadowless too, with exactly one exception: Machamp, which came only in the starter set and was still stamped after the plate had gained the shadow. Any other stamped Base Set card with a shadow is fake. Conversely, the most dangerous fake is a stamp added to a genuine Shadowless card, because it passes the shadow test.

Shadowless is purely an English phenomenon. The German Base Set appeared in December 1999 and the French Set de Base on 18 November 1999, printed in Belgium. By then the plate already had the shadow, including the 1st Edition. There is no German, French or Italian Shadowless card, so listings such as “German Charizard shadowless” are mislabelled.

Shadowless is also rare where you might not expect it. PSA has graded 14,408 Shadowless Charizards, against 103,122 Unlimited and 5,593 1st Edition (as of August 2026). Only 58 Shadowless Charizards received a PSA 10, 0.4 percent. That makes perfect Shadowless Charizards scarcer than perfect 1st Edition ones (123), yet the 1st Edition costs many times more in PSA 10. Ungraded, the median on Last Sold over the past twelve months was about €970 for a Shadowless Charizard (217 sales) and €279 for Unlimited (3,175 sales).

Last Sold lists Shadowless as its own print with its own card pages, in English only and without a language switch. Listings with “Non-Shadowless” or “No Shadowless” in the title do not count as Shadowless.

Sources

• Bulbapedia: Base Set (TCG)
• Bulbapedia: 1st Edition (TCG), Shadowless
• Bulbapedia: Demo Game (TCG)
• Elite Fourum: Guide to identifying all WotC Base Set booster packs
• Elite Fourum: English Base Set 1st Edition cards that aren't shadowless
• PokéWiki: Base Set (TCG)
• CGC: Shadowless Charizard earns a Pristine 10
• pokeinvest: PSA Pop Report Base Set

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