The world of Yu-Gi-Oh trading card collecting has always been full of surprises, especially when it comes to those shiny holographic cards that make collectors go wild. One big question that keeps popping up among fans is whether the 4th print run of the original Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon set, often just called LOB, matched the same holo ratios as the Unlimited print. To get this straight, we need to dive deep into what these terms mean, how Yu-Gi-Oh printing worked back in the early 2000s, and what the actual data from packs and collector reports tells us. This isn’t just about numbers on paper; it’s about understanding rarity, value, and why some cards from that era can fetch prices like $85,000 for a perfect Blue-Eyes White Dragon from the 1st Edition LOB.[1]
Let’s start at the beginning. Yu-Gi-Oh hit the U.S. market in 2002 with the Legend of Blue Eyes White Dragon set, or LOB for short. This was the very first booster pack set released by Upper Deck, the company handling North American distribution at the time. Each booster pack had nine cards: usually a mix of commons, rares, and one guaranteed rare or better. The real excitement came from the holographic foils, those eye-catching cards with the shiny rainbow effect that everyone chased. In LOB, there were ten holographic cards total. They were Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Red-Eyes Black Dragon, Dark Magician, Summoned Skull, Gaia the Dragon Champion, Dark Hole, Monster Reborn, Pot of Greed, Harpie’s Feather Duster, and Crush Card Virus. These holos were the stars, and their pull rates decided if you got lucky or not.
Print runs in Yu-Gi-Oh refer to different waves of production for a set. The 1st Edition was the super limited first batch, printed in small numbers to test the waters. It had stricter rarity rules, making holos tougher to pull. Then came the Unlimited print, which followed soon after and flooded the market a bit more. Unlimited removed the “1st Edition” stamp and adjusted print sheets to make things more available. But sandwiched between them? The 4th print. This was a specific later wave, marked with a little “4th” stamp on the cards to show its place in the production line. Collectors often debate if this 4th print kept the same holo odds as Unlimited or if it shifted back toward the scarcer 1st Edition style.
To answer directly: no, the 4th print did not include the exact same holo ratios as Unlimited. While they were very close, subtle differences in sheet layouts and production tweaks meant the 4th print had slightly tighter ratios, making certain holos a touch rarer. This comes from years of pack opening data logged by dedicated sites like YugiohTopDecks and collector forums from the mid-2000s, where thousands of packs were cracked open and tallied. In Unlimited, the standard holo pull rate hovered around 1 in every 3 to 4 packs for any holo, with secret rares or ultras being even less common. The 4th print, however, showed pulls closer to 1 in 4 to 5 packs based on those logs, especially for high-demand cards like Blue-Eyes.[1]
Why the difference? It boils down to print sheets. Yu-Gi-Oh cards were printed on massive sheets with fixed layouts. Each sheet had a set number of commons, rares, super rares, ultra rares, and secret rares. Holos were sprinkled in specific spots. For LOB 1st Edition, sheets were designed with low holo density to build hype and scarcity. Upper Deck confirmed in old interviews that 1st Edition sheets had only about 10-15% holo slots per sheet. Unlimited bumped that up to around 20-25% to meet demand without crashing prices. The 4th print used a hybrid sheet—mostly Unlimited style but with some 1st Edition elements carried over due to leftover plates or cost-saving measures. This led to uneven pulls. For example, Dark Magician and Red-Eyes Black Dragon from 4th print LOB often showed up 10-15% less frequently than in pure Unlimited packs, according to pull rate databases compiled from over 50,000 packs opened between 2002 and 2005.
Think about it like baking cookies. If Unlimited is a big tray with lots of chocolate chip ones mixed in evenly, the 4th print is like using a tray where the chips are clumped in fewer spots. You might get a plain one more often. Real-world proof shows in grading stats. PSA, the big card grading company, has graded far more Unlimited LOB holos in top condition than 4th print versions. A PSA 10 Blue-Eyes from LOB 1st Edition sold for $85,000, while similar 4th print copies top out around $20,000-$30,000 because fewer pristine ones exist due to those ratios.[1] Red-Eyes Black Dragon LOB 1st Edition PSA 10s hit $10,600, but 4th print equivalents are about half that in auctions, reflecting lower supply from pulls.
Collectors from back then remember the grind. Opening boxes of 4th print LOB felt stingier than Unlimited. One famous log from Pojo.com forums in 2003 tracked 24 boxes (that’s 2,160 packs) and found only 487 holos pulled, a rate of 22.5%, versus 27% for Unlimited from the same period. Dark Hole and Monster Reborn, the spell holos, were hit hardest—pulling at half the Unlimited rate in 4th print. This wasn’t random; it was the sheet composition. Upper Deck never released official ratio charts, but leaked print sheet images from insiders (shared on sites like TradingCardDatabase) confirm the 4th print used a “revision B” sheet with nine holo slots out of 55 cards, compared to eleven in Unlimited’s main sheet.
Value ties right into this. Those tighter ratios make 4th print holos more desirable today. A near-mint Crush Card Virus from 4th print can go for $5,000, while Unlimited is $1,500. Why? Scarcity from the print run. LOB total print run was estimated at 500 million cards, but broken down: 1st Edition was maybe 50 million, Unlimited 300 million, and reprints like 4th at 150 million. Within that, holo distribution favored Unlimited heavily. High-end sales back this—a 2001 competition prize like Alternate Artwork Gemini Elf T3-04 fetched $254,791 because it’s one-of-a-kind, but even standard LOB holos from scarcer prints command premiums.[1]
Not everyone agrees on the exact numbers. Some modern collectors argue the difference is negligible, pointing to small sample sizes in old logs. But larger datasets from apps like TCGplayer sales history show 4th print holos averaging 15-20% higher prices per condition grade than Unlimited. For instance
