Base checklist

Base Set is where the whole thing started. Released in 1999, it was the first English Pokémon set — 102 cards that are still the ones most people picture when they think of the hobby. More than twenty-five years on, people still love it just as much — there's just something about those original holos. The holographic Charizard (4/102) is the grail, of course — the most famous card in all of Pokémon — and the early 1st Edition and Shadowless printings are the stuff of legend. But the whole set carries that first-generation magic. See how much of the classic you've pulled together in the checklist below. Before grading any of them, run the numbers through the grading calculator.