Zubat · Team Rocket, what to know.
About the Zubat card
Zubat sits at #70 in Team Rocket, the fifth of the Wizards of the Coast print runs. Illustration by Mitsuhiro Arita. Arita was the original Pokémon TCG illustrator and the artist behind the Base Set Charizard. His vintage-era art has a painterly quality that distinguishes it from the cleaner reference-style work of the Sugimori cards.
The flavor text on the card reads: "Lives in dark caves. Can occasionally be seen at night, when it flies in search of food." Pokédex entries from this era are short and often quirky, written by the original Japanese localization team for a specific stat-block layout that no longer exists in modern cards.
About Zubat in the Pokémon world
The bat Pokémon. Famously over-encountered in cave areas of the games. Common card across multiple early sets. Familiar punchline for veteran players.
Print variants and how to spot them
Team Rocket shipped in 1st Edition (stamped) and Unlimited prints. The set is famous for Dark Raichu, card #83, the first Secret Rare ever printed. The Secret Rare slot exists outside the standard 82-card numbering and was an unannounced pull from the printer.
Grading and condition
Commons grade most forgivingly of any tier in the set. Centering is the typical grade cap; the soft Wizards-era cardstock picks up edge whitening easily but the high print runs mean clean copies remain affordable. A first-time grading submission on a Common is the cheapest way to learn what each grading service is actually looking at.
If you are buying this card
Raw copies of this card are inexpensive enough that the grading math rarely justifies submission unless you have a clearly pack-fresh example. For set completionists, picking up a clean raw copy and sleeving it is the practical move.
