Pikachu · Base Set, what to know.
Pikachu is card 58 of 102 in Base Set, a Common, and the entry-level Pokémon for nearly every collector in the West. The artwork is by Mitsuhiro Arita and was reused across multiple promotional contexts in the late 1990s.
The variant worth knowing is the cheek color. The earliest 1st Edition prints carried yellow cheeks; later prints corrected to red. Yellow-cheek 1st Edition Pikachu PSA 10 examples have cleared the high three figures, while standard 1st Edition Red Cheeks remain affordable in graded condition. The yellow cheeks are a parenthetical on the listing, not a separate variant family. Both are 1st Edition Pikachu.
Unlimited prints with red cheeks are the standard print most collectors own. A clean raw copy is one of the most affordable pieces of vintage Pokémon you can pick up, which makes it a good first grading submission for anyone learning how PSA scoring works.
Three prints, three markets.
Earliest print. Cheeks visibly yellow, not red. Rare in high grade.
Later 1st Edition print. The more common 1st Ed.
Standard print. Red cheeks.
