My Quest for the First Dragonite Card

Going down the rabbit hole of pre-Base Set Pokémon cards

Like a lot of collectors, being locked inside during the pandemic had me searching for a nostalgia kick through Pokémon cards. I had amassed quite the collection through my childhood but over the years had lost or sold most of my collection. 2020 led to a lot of time to revisit the Pokémon games, and with my love for the franchise at heights that could rival 10-year-old me, and the newly discovered concept of disposable income, I felt compelled to rebuild my TCG collection. One of the first big cards I added to my collection was a first edition holo Dragonite from Fossil. Dragonite is my favorite Pokémon and I wanted to have the first time it was ever printed displayed prominently in my game room. However, somewhere down the line I realized, of course, that this was only the first time it was printed in English. Naturally, I had to also represent the first time a Dragonite card appeared on the planet, which led to me acquiring a Japanese Fossil holo Dragonite. This purchase also kickstarted my infatuation with vintage Japanese Pokémon cards, but that’s a story for another time.

With my pair of Fossil Dragonites in hand I could now say that I have the first Dragonite card ever printed and the first Dragonite card ever printed in English. And that remains true as far as the official Pokémon TCG is concerned. However, I recently came across a Whatnot stream auctioning off Topsun Pokémon cards with the claim that they were the first Pokémon Cards ever made, and this sent me down quite the rabbit hole. I used an article titled A Guide to Vintage Pokémon Cards by Doug Brenner and Grayson Jones as a base for my research and will provide a link below if you want to dig into this more yourself. As you’re about to find out the answer to the question, “what are the first Pokémon cards?” is not exactly straight forward and they do a great job compiling any verifiable evidence we have to settle the debate.

https://www.pwccmarketplace.com/definitive-guides/a-guide-to-vintage-pokemon-cards

It’s kind of wild to think that the first instance of Pokémon cards, now an iconic pillar of the largest media franchise on the planet, is not well documented. The Topsun cards, produced by the Japanese company Top-Seika and distributed in packs of chewing gum, are considered by some to be the first Pokémon cards. These cards are the only Pokémon cards (to my knowledge) that have a 1995 copyright stamp on them, predating the 1996 stamp on Japanese base set. However, on Top-Seika’s official website, we can see that the company did not receive the license to make Pokémon cards until 1997. This means that Topsun cards could not have been commercially produced or distributed until after Japanese Base set had already released, thus disqualifying them from contention. There is a ton of speculation of how these cards could have been used as giveaways or promotional items or could have been printed in 1995 but then delayed the official release until 1997. There are dozens of discussion boards and accounts explaining how the Topsun cards could be the first Pokémon cards, but the only hard evidence we have seems to suggest otherwise. As explained in the article above, the evidence is compelling enough that two of the top grading companies, CGC & BGS, now have a 1997 date on newly graded original Topsun cards.

Topsun Dragonite (left), Bandai Carddass Dragonite (right)

This vague date of 1997 would be an issue for me on my quest as Mystery of the Fossils, Dragonite’s first appearance in the TCG in Japan also released in in 1997. Except that there’s another contender for the first Pokémon cards ever made, even before Japanese Base Set, and this set has the strongest case to be crowed as the first. The Bandai Carddass cards were distributed in counter top vending machines in shops for 14 cents a pop. The September 1996 issue of the Japanese manga magazine CoroCoro advertises the release of the Bandai Carddass Pocket Monster cards happening late that same month. A September 1996 release pre-dates the official TCG release in Japan of October 1996.  Something that confused me as I started looking into this release is that the monikers ‘red’ and ‘green’ could be referring to either the color of the card itself or which part (1 or 2) the card was released in.  To further clarify, Part 1 of the set is referred to as the ‘Green’ release, but the Pokémon included in that set could come in a red or green variant.  The link above has a nice chart breaking down which Pokémon are included in each release.

Fun, Dragonite unrelated, fact: The Japanese Base set could be considered the third commercial release of Pokémon cards since the edition of CoroCoro that advertised the release of the Base Set, came with 2 promotional cards and was released 5 days before the Base Set.  So those two cards, a ‘glossy’ Pikachu and Jiggypuff are the first official, playable TCG Pokémon cards.

With that newly acquired information I had a new card to add to my shelf, and I now have 4 different Dragonite cards that could be considered ‘the first.’ A Bandai Carddass Dragonite, that seems to be the actual first Dragonite card ever officially released. A Topsun Dragonite, that I picked up anyway because it helps to tell the story, and who knows, maybe we’ll find out some new Pokémon conspiracy down the line that supports some of the online threads I’ve read. A Mystery of the Fossils Dragonite, that is the first appearance of Dragonite in the official Pokémon TCG. And a first edition Fossil Dragonite, that is its first English appearance in the official TCG. It’s pretty cool that I’ve been a fan of this series for almost my entire life and just yesterday could, I think, answer the question of, “what are the first Pokémon cards?”

Thanks for reading! As you can probably tell, I’m far from an expert on the topic and would love to learn more. If you have anything interesting to add or if I got something wrong, please let me know in the comments and let’s have a discussion.