NOTE FROM BRIAN: Here is an email that I received from Pocketmonsters.com about "1st Edition" Pocket Monster Card Game cards (base set only). Recently I had some rather... er... disturbing emails from a Japanese fan who insisted that PoJo needed to change the price guides to reflect the fact that Japanese Base Set has a "1st Edition". I had not previously heard of this, so I emailed pocketmonsters.com and asked: ----------------------------------------------------------------- From: Pocketmonsters.com Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 7:41 AM To: Brian Brokaw Subject: Re: You made too big mistake! I finally got some solid information about this issue. It turns out that there was indeed a "first edition" base set. [friendly, inside joke snipped] As the guy explained, the cards don't have rarity symbols on the bottom. That's the only difference, as far as I can tell. The artwork and attributes are otherweise exactly the same. What still isn't clear to me is whether the second-edition base set cards were released *before* or *after* the Jungle series cards came out. It they were released before Jungle, I think the first-edition cards could have some real value. If, however, they came after (or at the same time) as Jungle, then that means first-edition cards were in print for almost six months. And that, I think, would make them rather common. And I have to admit to having seen LOTS of these first-edition cards. Which makes me think they really aren't very rare. Of course, I didn't know until now why they lacked the rarity symbols...