What does shadowless mean?

daviduk2000

Aspiring Trainer
Member
when i see cards listed i quite often see Shadowless. and i have no idea what it means and they all seam to be rarer and higher value. how can i tell what a shodowless card is
 

Vulpix Yolk

\ \ durant gang \ \
Member
Shadowless cards are cards from the base set were there is no shadow under the boarder around the card art.
 

daviduk2000

Aspiring Trainer
Member
ok where did these cards come from? And why are they so valuable.

just realised i have a shadowless 1st edition poliwhirl. but its also very slightly differently layed out from normal poliwhirl in the fact the energy cost for its attack is shown differently. 3 energy in a line not in a pyramid
 

Alex(charm)ander

The very best, like no one ever was.
Advanced Member
Member
daviduk2000 said:
ok where did these cards come from? And why are they so valuable.

just realised i have a shadowless 1st edition poliwhirl. but its also very slightly differently layed out from normal poliwhirl in the fact the energy cost for its attack is shown differently. 3 energy in a line not in a pyramid

That's probably a fake card, if you can show us a scan we can tell you. When Base set was printed it's earliest printings had the shadowless card design so it is very rare.
 

Elk-Dimension

u elkcom hangl man
Member
daviduk2000 said:
ok where did these cards come from? And why are they so valuable.

just realised i have a shadowless 1st edition poliwhirl. but its also very slightly differently layed out from normal poliwhirl in the fact the energy cost for its attack is shown differently. 3 energy in a line not in a pyramid

They're misprints, basically. Also, about the Poliwhirl, that's just how old cards were printed, with 3+ attack costs in pyramids.
 

daviduk2000

Aspiring Trainer
Member
i made a mistake. it wasnt 3 in a line. it was.

2 energies its just they were higher up on the card compared to the normal ones.

and im not an expert but i dont think its fake.
i can usually tell by looking at the back of tha cards to see any sort of mismatched in colours. and the colours are identicle to normal ones.

the front of the card is high quality print. all borders are same size all round and writing is very readable (thigs fakes usually dont have)

the only think that makes it look slightly fake, and even then i think it might be because it was shadowless. is

the 60 HP at the top seems quite thin. and the whole card seems lighter. colours. same shade as the normal one jsut. as if its i dunno almost faded.
 

Elk-Dimension

u elkcom hangl man
Member
Do you have a copy of the same card? The main way to tell if something is shadowless is if it's missing the shading on the right side of the portrait.
 

Serperior

~
Advanced Member
Member
Yeah. These cards also have different coloring than the shadowed ones. Here, check this out. See how the first two Charizard cards are shadowless in their borders?
 

LegendsLugia251

attack mode
Member
easiest way to tell if a card is shadowless is just look at the bottom of the card and its mostly lighter than the base set unlimited cards.

if you see 1995,96,98,99 nintedo creatures gamefreaks 1999 then its shadowless.if its fake just looking at the back tells that its fake since it will be darker and looks more like paper
 

Kittymew

Aspiring Trainer
Member
I have a few hundred shadowless cards of various rarity, though sadly not many of the holos are in any good condition. If anyone wants these drop me a line. As for that poliwhirl, 2xN is how they laid out energy symbols in the old sets, never wider.
 

CorinthiansRose

Aspiring Trainer
Member
daviduk2000 said:
when i see cards listed i quite often see Shadowless. and i have no idea what it means and they all seam to be rarer and higher value. how can i tell what a shodowless card is

Shadowless cards were the very first cards to be printed. They originally made the cards with no shadow under the border of the art, but the producers decided that the art needed to pop so they added the shadow later on.
 

AmishEskimoNinja

Hating durant since 11/16/11
Member
CorinthiansRose said:
Shadowless cards were the very first cards to be printed. They originally made the cards with no shadow under the border of the art, but the producers decided that the art needed to pop so they added the shadow later on.

Exactly. As far as I know, no first edition base set card has a shadow, which backs up this claim. Why do so many people think they are misprints?
 

LegendsLugia251

attack mode
Member
well there are 1st edition shadowed cards but they are the foreign language cards.so many people think they are misprints due to the fact mostly since alot of people who have the base set unlimited cards have shadowed ones while 1st ed cards were always shadowless
 
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