You asked for an extremely extensive, long, plain-text article in a simple, easy-to-understand style about how many Base Set shadowless Pokémon cards exist with yellow bleed errors. I will focus on the original Pokémon Base Set (1999 U.S. release) shadowless cards and the commonly discussed “yellow bleed” or “yellow stain/line/roller” ink errors associated with those prints. I will present well-sourced facts, clearly mark where evidence is limited or estimates are used, and avoid medical content (there is no medical content relevant to this topic). I will not use Markdown or other formatting; the text will be plain. Citations to the search results you provided will be placed inline after sentences as required.
Direct answer (one- to two-sentence summary)
There is no authoritative, exact count published for how many Base Set shadowless cards have yellow bleed or yellow-stain ink errors; collectors and community records indicate the error is relatively uncommon but known across multiple cards in the shadowless print run and was largely corrected in later reprints, with documented examples and descriptions but no single official tally from Wizards of the Coast or official printers.[1]
Essential context and supporting details
What is meant by “Base Set shadowless” and “yellow bleed” errors
Base Set “shadowless” refers to U.S. Base Set cards printed in the earliest run (commonly called “1st print” shadowless) that lack the gray drop shadow along the right side of the Pokémon art box which appears on later U.S. Base Set reprints; these shadowless variants were printed in 1999 and are distinct from Unlimited and later 1999–2000 reprints.[1] The term “yellow bleed” or “yellow stain/lines” describes visible vertical or horizontal streaks, oversaturation, drips, or bands of yellow ink across the card surface, or areas where yellow ink is missing or abnormally saturated—an ink plate obstruction or press contamination issue during the yellow pass of CMYK printing is usually blamed by printers and collectors.[1]
Where collectors have documented yellow-related errors
Community-maintained error-card pages and collector resources document multiple yellow-ink problems in early Pokémon prints, including:
– Vertical yellow lines or streaks across shadowless holo cards described as “yellow stain shadowless holos.”[1]
– Yellow oversaturation across whole cards (“yellow saturated holos”).[1]
– Yellow drip obstructions leaving missing yellow ink (e.g., Venusaur unlimited prints noted as having blue ovals of missing yellow from water drip obstructions on the yellow plate).[1]
– “Yellow roller stains” described for some unlimited commons and uncommons as horizontal drips, streaks, and lines.[1]
Which specific Base Set cards are known to show yellow-bleed or related yellow errors
Collector reports and community pages list a range of Base Set and later cards with yellow-ink problems; examples from an error-card compendium include:
– Shadowless holos exhibiting vertical yellow ink lines across the card (described broadly rather than by a single card name).[1]
– Unlimited Ninetales with a yellow “hair-like” obstruction at the bottom right and other yellow/ink anomalies listed for unlimited prints (note: this references unlimited prints, not exclusively shadowless).[1]
– Venusaur unlimited prints with missing yellow ovals caused by water drip obstructions on the yellow plate (again, cited in an unlimited context).[1]
Because these community pages aggregate many reported errors across runs (shadowless, unlimited, reprints), not every entry applies only to shadowless; the documentation tends to describe patterns found in multiple printings rather than giving a card-by-card, print-run-exclusive database.[1]
Why there is no definitive count
– No manufacturer or printer has released a public, verifiable production defect tally for the Base Set shadowless run; Wizards of the Coast and its printers did not publish counts of specific ink errors for collectors to access, so official numbers do not exist in the public record.[1]
– Collector databases and error catalogs come from hobbyist reporting and sample observation rather than exhaustive audit. These sources note the presence and types of errors and sometimes estimate rarity, but they cannot produce absolute counts because they are not based on complete production records.[1]
– The same error descriptors (e.g., “yellow stain,” “yellow lines,” “yellow saturation”) are used for shadowless and unlimited prints in community lists, which makes isolating shadowless-only instances difficult without a comprehensive, card-by-card, serially tracked dataset.[1]
Estimates of rarity and how collectors interpret scarcity
– Community commentary and error pages treat yellow-stain/roller issues as noteworthy but not ubiquitous; some items (shadowless holos with vertical yellow lines) are described as “most of the shadowless holos” having such lines in some citations, but that phrasing comes from hobbyist summaries and should be read cautiously because it’s based on observed samples rather than official counts.[1]
– Because the Base Set shadowless photos and sales history indicate that the shadowless holo run was smaller than later reprints, an ink-plate contamination that affected some shadowless sheets could produce a relatively small but collectible set of error cards; however, precise percentages are not provided by primary sources.[1]
How collectors verify and grade yellow-bleed errors
– Collectors typically verify yellow ink issues visually and document them with photographs and provenance; major third-party grading companies (e.g., PSA, BGS) will grade a card’s condition and will note certain surface or printing anomalies in their population reports when they become numerous enough, but they do not provide a cross-sectional count of every type of printing error by default.[1]
– To establish an item as a genuine print error, collectors look for consistent characteristics that match known yellow-plate issues (vertical/horizontal streaks, oversaturation, missing yellow “bubbles” or ovals, roller streaks) and compare to known examples documented by longstanding community error lists.[1]
Known corrections and later printings
– Community sources note that some yellow-ink problems were corrected in later prints of Base Set (for instance, the 4th Base set print released exclusively in the UK is mentioned as correcting some yellow-bleed/holobleed issues).[1]
– This means that cards from later runs or regional reprints (UK 4th print, Unlimited reprints) are less likely to show the same yellow-bleed patterns common to earlier shadowless sheets, which reinforces the idea that the issue was press-related for specific plates and runs rather than an inherent design flaw affecting every production batch.[1]
Practical guidance for collectors wanting to find or confirm yellow-bleed shadowless Base Set cards
– Use high-resolution photographs taken under consistent lighting to inspect for vertical/horizontal yellow streaks, oversaturation, and missing-yellow ovals; compare to exemplars in trusted error-card galleries or long-running community pages that document known instances and variants.[1]
– Consult population reports from major grading services: when enough error examples are submitted, PSA or Beckett population reports (and their variants) may reveal how many graded copies are recorded and can give a sense of relative scarcity among graded submissions, though these counts are constrained to graded populations and won’t equal total existence.[
