Pokemon Pricing’s estimate of how many 4th print Charizards were printed is about 15,000, with a plausible range of about 10,000 to 50,000. There is no official figure: Wizards of the Coast never published one, so we built the estimate two ways, up from graded copies and down from UK card sales in 1999-2000, and both central cases land close to 15,000.
That number covers only the 1999-2000 copyright print, the version collectors call the 4th print or UK print. It is not a count of all non-Shadowless Base Set Charizards. The standard Unlimited Charizard, with a 1999 copyright line, is a far larger print: PSA, CGC and TAG hold more than 121,716 Unlimited Charizard slabs between them, and that print run was never published either. Our article on the Unlimited Base Set Charizard covers that card.
As of October 6, 2026: 571 graded 1999-2000 Charizards can be counted across four graders: PSA 484 (a collector’s figure from September 2024), CGC 60, TAG 9 and BGS at least 18. That is 0.41% of CGC’s Unlimited Charizards and 0.63% of TAG’s. Pokemon Pricing’s estimate: about 15,000 printed, plausible range about 10,000 to 50,000.
What the 4th print Charizard is
Four versions of the 1999 English Base Set Charizard 4/102 matter here. 1st Edition cards carry a small black Edition 1 stamp. Shadowless cards have no stamp and no drop shadow along the right edge of the art box. Unlimited cards add that shadow and carry a 1999 copyright line. The 4th print looks like Unlimited, with the shadow and no stamp, but its copyright line reads 1999-2000.
CGC describes it this way: “The 1999-2000 Base Set was a variant that was issued for the UK market. The cards tend to be a bit lighter in color and carry the 1999-2000 copyright date at the bottom of each card.” CGC adds that the release fixed typographical errors from earlier printings, including the hit points on Vulpix. Hansons, the auction house that sold a sealed 1999-2000 box in 2023, went further and said the box “was only released in the UK.” That is an auctioneer’s description, not a Wizards statement.
The nickname is not a press-run number. Wizards’ release of February 3, 1999 said the company was “gearing up for a fourth print run after only six weeks on the market”, long before any card could carry a 1999-2000 date. Wizards’ help desk also said that “copyrights change on the cards as different print runs and dates pass.” Read 4th print as the fourth version collectors can tell apart. Our piece on how many Base Set Charizards were printed covers the production record in full.
Nobody has published how many 1999-2000 cards were printed. Asked in a January 2000 chat whether it releases print run statistics, Wizards said: “Though we are a publicly held company, we are not obligated to release that sort of information.” No Wizards, Hasbro or printer record of the 1999-2000 run has surfaced since.
Two collector claims circulate, both from one source: Jon Free, described by Richard Winterton Auctioneers in September 2024 as one of the world’s largest collectors of fourth print cards. He said the holographic cards “were only printed in the UK for around two weeks” and that “only around 20 per cent of UK boxes contain them”. He also said fourth print packs from the USA and Australia hold only ordinary Unlimited holos. None of these comes with a source, so they are claims, not facts. One of them returns below as an Assumption.
What the graders show
Every grader that separates the print tells the same story: the 1999-2000 Charizard is a thin slice of the Unlimited-era card. Shares are our arithmetic on each grader’s own numbers.
| Grader | 1999-2000 Charizards | Unlimited Charizards, same grader | 1999-2000 share | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 484 (collector’s figure) | more than 62,400 (Goldin lot) | about 0.78% | September 2024 |
| CGC | 60 | 14,801 | 0.41% | October 6, 2026 |
| TAG | 9 | 1,422 | 0.63% | October 6, 2026 |
| BGS | at least 18 (grade 8.5 or higher) | not available | not available | February 2026 |
| SGC | not available | not available | not available | not read |
| Total counted | 571 | mixed dates |
CGC lists the card as 4/102 Charizard (2000) 1999-2000 Holo, a separate line inside its Base Set Unlimited report: 60 graded, two of them Gem Mint 10. TAG keeps a separate set, 2000 WOTC Pokémon Base Set 1999-2000, with 9 Charizards, against 1,422 in its Unlimited Base Set.
PSA’s report now needs a login, so its count comes second-hand. Jon Free cited “484 total fourth print PSA-graded Charizards against 4,229 total first edition Charizards.” A Goldin lot that closed the same month put PSA’s Unlimited Charizards at more than 62,400. PSA’s 1999-2000 count has probably grown since: a Goldin listing open this month cites more than 105,365 Unlimited copies, 1.7 times the 2024 figure.
Beckett grades the print as its own set, Pokemon Base Fourth Print. A BGS 8.5 that sold on Fanatics Collect on February 8, 2026 carried the note “BGS Population 1 of 10 – Eight Graded Higher”: ten at 8.5 plus eight above makes at least 18. Copies below 8.5 are not counted, and Beckett’s own report was offline. SGC’s report sits behind a reCAPTCHA and could not be read.
Adding PSA’s 484, CGC’s 60, TAG’s 9 and BGS’s 18 gives 571. Treat it as a minimum. PSA’s figure is two years old, SGC is missing and BGS is partial. PSA may also hold 1999-2000 copies in its plain Unlimited line: Jon Free counted “around four other PSA 10 Charizards from before they recognised it as a separate print run”, and PSA itself warned in 2019 that it “started recognizing certain varieties within specific sets long after the company began grading the issue”.
571 is also a count of slabs, not cards. PSA says collectors “crack out their cards to have them signed, resubmit, or sell raw”, so one card can be counted twice. For the full picture across every printing, see our Base Set Charizard population report.
In plain terms, the graded record puts the 1999-2000 Charizard at about 0.4% to 0.8% of graded Unlimited-era Charizards, roughly 1 in every 125 to 250. Against 1st Edition, Jon Free’s PSA figures give about 8.7 1st Edition slabs for every 1999-2000 slab, and CGC’s 1st Edition report gives 650 to 60, about 10.8 to 1. Those are graded copies. 1st Editions are far more likely to be sent for grading, and no 1st Edition print size has been published, so neither ratio says how the two print runs compare.
Is Charizard typical? The cross-card check
If collectors graded 1999-2000 Charizards far more eagerly than other 1999-2000 holos, Charizard’s share would stand out. It does not. Each cell is the 1999-2000 count against the same grader’s plain Unlimited count, read on October 6, 2026.
| Holo | CGC 1999-2000 / Unlimited | CGC share | TAG 1999-2000 / Unlimited | TAG share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charizard | 60 / 14,801 | 0.41% | 9 / 1,422 | 0.63% |
| Blastoise | 41 / 8,890 | 0.46% | 5 / 693 | 0.72% |
| Venusaur | 23 / 8,509 | 0.27% | 1 / 599 | 0.17% |
| Clefairy | 14 / 3,837 | 0.36% | none / 129 | none |
| Magneton | 24 / 3,934 | 0.61% | 1 / 131 | 0.76% |
| Chansey | 12 / 4,305 | 0.28% | 3 / 185 | 1.62% |
| Mewtwo | 70 / 7,247 | 0.97% | 3 / 463 | 0.65% |
| All 15 holos | 475 / 91,585 | 0.52% | 29 / 5,354 | 0.54% |
Machamp is left out of the totals because neither grader has a 1999-2000 line for it. At CGC, low-demand holos such as Chansey, Clefairy and Magneton run from 0.28% to 0.61%, and Charizard’s 0.41% sits in the middle. Mewtwo is the outlier at 0.97%; Charizard is not. TAG’s counts are single digits, so one slab swings a share a long way, as Chansey shows.
Holos against non-holos
The sharper signal is holo against non-holo. At CGC, 1999-2000 copies of the six non-holo rares (cards 17 to 22, which fill the same rare slot in a pack as the holos) number 254 against 3,938 Unlimited copies, or 6.45%. Pidgeotto’s 1999-2000 line is on page 2 of the report. The 15 holos are 0.52%.
TAG has graded only three 1999-2000 non-holo rares, too few to use, so there we compare all non-holo cards: 632 slabs in its 1999-2000 set against 4,803 in its Unlimited Base Set, or 13.2%, against 0.54% for holos. Relative to its Unlimited twin, a 1999-2000 holo is roughly 12 to 24 times scarcer than a 1999-2000 non-holo. That fits the claim that most 1999-2000 packs held ordinary 1999-copyright holos, without proving it.
Our Estimate: How Many 4th Print Charizards Were Printed, Step by Step
Every number in this section is sourced, computed from sourced numbers, or marked as an Assumption. Change an assumption and the answer moves; the tables show by how much.
Method A: up from graded copies
Method A asks one question: what share of all 1999-2000 Charizards ever printed has been graded by PSA, CGC, TAG or BGS? Call it g. Divide the 571 floor by g and you have a print estimate.
No grader publishes grading rates, so g is an Assumption: 3.5% as the central case, 6% as the high case and 2% as the low. It could be higher, because the print sells at a premium and collectors who know it check the copyright line before submitting. It could be lower, because many owners never notice the 1999-2000 line, grading probably caught on later among UK collectors, and worn copies are rarely worth grading.
571 divided by 6% is 9,517. Divided by 3.5% it is 16,314, and divided by 2% it is 28,550. Because 571 is a minimum, all three run low.
Method B: down from UK card sales
In April 2000 The Guardian reported Pokémon cards “generating sales of £140m in the past six months” in Britain, and the BBC said sales “have brought in £140m in six months.” Neither says where the figure came from, or whether it is retail value across every Pokémon card product, starters and later sets included. A BBC report the same month said “Packs of 11 cards should cost £2.45”.
£140m divided by £2.45 is about 57.1 million pack-equivalents (57,142,857). That is an upper bound on packs, since part of the money bought starter sets, theme decks and other sets. Three shares then narrow it down:
- A, Base Set boosters as a share of that spending (Assumption): 25%, 40% or 55%. Jungle and Fossil were also on sale, along with starters and theme decks.
- B, the share of those Base Set packs that were 1999-2000 print (Assumption): 20%, 40% or 60%. When the run started is unknown. UK supply seems to have outlasted US supply: in September 2000 a Wizards help desk said Base Set had been out of print in the US for some time, and that stores still selling it “might be importing them from the UK.”
- C, the share of 1999-2000 packs whose holo was a 1999-2000 holo: 4% from TAG (0.54% divided by 13.2%) and 8% from CGC (0.52% divided by 6.45%). If holos had changed copyright line as often as non-holos, the two shares would match; the gap measures how often they did not. That rests on an assumption of its own, that holos and non-holos were graded at the same relative rate in both prints. For the high case we use the collector claim of 20% as an Assumption, not a fact.
Each pack then has a 1 in 3 chance of a holo; Wizards said in February 2000 that “the number of foils is 1 in 3 packs.” There are 16 holos, per PSA, and Wizards said “Charizard is no more rare than any other rare in the base set.” Its card FAQ put the odds of any specific foil at roughly 1 in 48 packs, and its 1999 FAQ said Charizard “is only found in booster packs”. So: Charizards = packs × A × B × C ÷ 48.
| Step | Low | Central | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK pack-equivalents (£140m ÷ £2.45) | 57,142,857 | 57,142,857 | 57,142,857 |
| × A, Base Set boosters (25% / 40% / 55%) | 14,285,714 | 22,857,143 | 31,428,571 |
| × B, 1999-2000 print (20% / 40% / 60%) | 2,857,143 | 9,142,857 | 18,857,143 |
| ÷ 3, packs with a holo | 952,381 | 3,047,619 | 6,285,714 |
| × C, 1999-2000 holos (4% / 8% / 20%) | 38,095 | 243,810 | 1,257,143 |
| ÷ 16, Charizards | 2,381 | 15,238 | 78,571 |
Every input, sourced or assumed
| Input | Value used (low / central / high estimate) | Sourced or Assumption | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK Pokémon card sales | £140m in six months | Sourced (The Guardian, BBC) | Origin not stated; treated as an upper bound |
| Booster price | £2.45 | Sourced (BBC) | Turns pounds into pack-equivalents |
| Holo odds | 1 in 3 packs; 16 holos; 1 in 48 per holo | Sourced (Wizards, PSA) | Charizard printed at the same rate as every holo |
| Graded floor | 571 | Computed from sourced counts | A minimum; mixed dates |
| g, share of all copies graded | 6% / 3.5% / 2% | Assumption | No grader publishes grading rates |
| A, Base Set booster share | 25% / 40% / 55% | Assumption | Starters, decks, Jungle and Fossil shared the spending |
| B, 1999-2000 share of Base Set packs | 20% / 40% / 60% | Assumption | Start date of the run unknown |
| C, 1999-2000 holo share | 4% / 8% / 20% | 4% and 8% computed from TAG and CGC; 20% Assumption | 20% is the collector claim, used only as the high case |
The result
| Method | Low | Central | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: graded floor ÷ g | 9,517 | 16,314 | 28,550 |
| B: UK sales down | 2,381 | 15,238 | 78,571 |
| Pokemon Pricing’s estimate | about 10,000 | about 15,000 | about 50,000 |
The two central cases, 15,238 and 16,314, nearly agree, though one starts from slabs and the other from pounds spent. Rounded, Pokemon Pricing’s estimate is about 15,000 Charizards printed in the 1999-2000 run.
The low end, about 10,000, is Method A’s low case rounded. We set aside Method B’s low case of 2,381: it would mean 24% of every 1999-2000 Charizard ever printed has already been graded, four times our highest grading assumption. The high end, about 50,000, sits well above Method A’s 28,550 and well below Method B’s 78,571, which needs all three high-end inputs at once, including an unsourced claim.
The biases we can identify push the numbers up, not down. The 571 floor is a minimum, so Method A runs low. The data-derived values of C run low too, because set builders grade 1999-2000 commons that would not be worth grading as Unlimited cards, which inflates the non-holo share. The main downward risk is the £140m itself, which may be inflated or cover far more than Base Set boosters.
What would change the estimate
- A PSA count from PSA. On the figures above PSA holds most graded copies, and the only count available is a collector’s from 2024.
- SGC’s count, and Beckett’s full population below 8.5.
- Any Wizards of the Coast UK, Hasbro or printer record of the run’s size or dates. None has surfaced. Hasbro’s annual report for 2000 mentions only costs “associated with overproduction of certain trading card games, primarily POKEMON related”, with no quantities.
- A documented find of sealed 1999-2000 cases or boxes. One sealed box is documented first-hand, sold by Hansons in 2023, and the auctioneer said “it is unknown how many are still out there in an unopened state.”
Any of these would replace an Assumption with a fact. Until then, the figure is Pokemon Pricing’s estimate and nothing more official exists.
How to identify a 1999-2000 Charizard
- The copyright line. Read the small print at the bottom of the card. The 4th print says 1999-2000; as Hansons told the BBC, “Other base set cards are stamped 1999.”
- A drop shadow and no stamp. Like Unlimited, it has the shadow along the right edge of the art box and no 1st Edition stamp.
- Colour. CGC says the print tends to be a bit lighter in color. Use it as a hint, not a test.
- The slab label. CGC writes Charizard (2000) 1999-2000 Holo; TAG uses its separate 1999-2000 set; BGS uses Pokemon Base Fourth Print. PSA is unclear: auction houses title PSA slabs as 1999-2000, but the PSA details on a Fanatics Collect lot show only Pokemon Game, Charizard-Holo.
Price tracking on this site follows the standard card: the Unlimited Base Set Charizard price history and the Base Set Unlimited price guide, from verified sold listings across eBay, TCGPlayer, Goldin, and Fanatics Collect. For the 1999-2000 print, recorded Fanatics Collect sales include a PSA 9 at $2,070 on August 10, 2025, a BGS 8.5 at $840 on February 8, 2026 and a PSA 1 at $725 on September 7, 2026. For the wider question of every Base Set Charizard, start with how many Base Set Charizards exist.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many 4th print Charizards were printed?
No official figure exists; Wizards of the Coast never published one. Pokemon Pricing’s estimate is about 15,000, with a plausible range of about 10,000 to 50,000. It is built two ways, up from 571 graded copies and down from UK card sales in 1999-2000, and every assumption behind it is shown in the article.
How many 4th print Charizards have been graded?
At least 571 slabs can be counted: 484 at PSA (a collector’s figure from September 2024), 60 at CGC and 9 at TAG (both read October 6, 2026) and at least 18 at BGS at grade 8.5 or higher. SGC’s count could not be read. These are grading records, not unique cards, and the true total is higher.
How can I tell if my Charizard is a 4th print?
Read the copyright line at the bottom of the card. A 4th print says 1999-2000; a standard Unlimited card says 1999. The 4th print has the drop shadow beside the art box and no 1st Edition stamp, and CGC notes that the print tends to be a bit lighter in color.
Is the 4th print Charizard the same as an Unlimited Charizard?
It is an Unlimited-style card, and CGC files it inside its Unlimited set, but it is a separate printing with a 1999-2000 copyright line. Graded copies run at about 0.4% to 0.8% of graded Unlimited-era Charizards. The standard 1999 Unlimited Charizard is a far larger print and is not part of this estimate.
Why is it called the 4th print?
It is a collector nickname, not a press-run number. Wizards was already gearing up for a fourth print run in February 1999, long before any card could carry a 1999-2000 copyright date.
Is the 4th print Charizard rarer than a 1st Edition Charizard?
In graded copies, yes: PSA had about 8.7 1st Edition Charizards for every 4th print in a collector’s 2024 figures, and CGC has about 10.8. But 1st Editions are far more likely to be sent for grading, and no print size for either version has ever been published, so the graded ratio is not a print ratio.
Does PSA grade the 4th print Charizard separately?
Probably, but it could not be confirmed. A collector quoted in 2024 said PSA recognises it as a separate print run and gave a PSA count of 484, and auction houses title PSA slabs as 1999-2000. PSA’s population report now needs a login, and its public CardFacts pages list no separate 1999-2000 entry.
Sources
- CGC Cards Population Report: Base Set – Unlimited – English (page 1) — CGC Cards, read October 6, 2026
- CGC Cards Population Report: Base Set – Unlimited – English (page 2) — CGC Cards, read October 6, 2026
- CGC Cards Population Report: Base Set – 1st Edition – English — CGC Cards, read October 6, 2026
- TAG Pop Report: 2000 WOTC Pokemon Base Set 1999-2000 — TAG Grading, read October 6, 2026
- TAG Pop Report: 1999 WOTC Pokemon Base Set — TAG Grading, read October 6, 2026
- Pokemon auction: Highest grade BGS fourth print Charizard in the world for sale in Lichfield, Staffordshire — Richard Winterton Auctioneers (quoting collector Jon Free), September 5, 2024
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set Rare Holofoil #4 Charizard – PSA GEM MT 10 (Lot #52) — Goldin, closed September 21, 2024
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set Holo #4 Charizard – PSA GEM MT 10 (Lot #54, open) — Goldin, current listing, read October 6, 2026
- 1999-2000 Pokemon Base Set Holo Charizard #4 BGS 8.5 NM-MT+ (WA212, Lot 7326) — Fanatics Collect, sold February 8, 2026
- 1999-2000 Pokemon Base Set Holo Charizard #4 PSA 9 MINT (WA186, Lot 5191) — Fanatics Collect, sold August 10, 2025
- 1999-2000 Pokemon Base Set Holo Charizard #4 PSA 1 PR (Buy Now) — Fanatics Collect, sold September 7, 2026
- CGC Trading Cards’ Favorite Pokemon Base Set Variants — CGC Trading Cards, undated, read October 6, 2026
- Pokemon cards bought decades ago to delight granddaughter could make £20,000 at auction — Hansons Auctioneers, October 11, 2023
- Rare Pokemon cards almost put in skip valued at £20k — BBC News, October 13, 2023
- Pokemon cards ‘exploit children’ — The Guardian, April 2000
- Pokemon upsets heads and parents — BBC News Online, April 24, 2000
- Schools ban Pokemon cards — BBC News Online, April 14, 2000
- Pokemon Online Help chat log (Wizards Customer Service) — Wizards of the Coast, archived by the Internet Archive, September 28, 2000
- Pokemon Online Help chat log (Wizards Customer Service) — Wizards of the Coast, archived by the Internet Archive, February 3, 2000
- Pokemon Cards FAQ (compiled from Wizards online-help chats) — Wizards of the Coast, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of August 18, 2000
- Pokemon TCG Frequently Asked Questions — Wizards of the Coast, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of November 28, 1999
- Pokemon Online Help chat log (Wizards Customer Service) — Wizards of the Coast, archived by the Internet Archive, January 27, 2000
- Pokemon Trading Card Game a Monster Success (Wizards of the Coast release) — Business Wire, archived by the Internet Archive, February 3, 1999
- Hasbro Inc. Form 10-K405, fiscal year 2000 — U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), filed 2001
- PSA Set Registry: Collecting the 1999 Pokemon 1st Edition Gaming Card Base Set, the Series that Started It All — PSA (Kevin Glew), archived by the Internet Archive, June 20, 2016
- 1999 Pokemon Game TCG Cards: PSA Population — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of September 19, 2019
- Beckett service status (served at the BGS population report address) — Beckett, read October 6, 2026
- What is the POP Report and how do I use it? — PSA Knowledge Base, July 18, 2025
Population figures are snapshots of each grading company’s public report on the date shown and change every week as new cards are graded. Print-run figures for the 1999 English Base Set were never published by Wizards of the Coast; anything described here as an estimate is labelled as one. This article is collector information, not investment advice. Pokémon and Charizard are trademarks of Nintendo, Creatures Inc. and GAME FREAK inc.; Pokemon Pricing is not affiliated with them or with any grading company.