A quick question about GX Ultra Shiny Cards

[KarenHartman97]

While identyfing the Japanese GX Ultra Shiny cards, I saw the little characters ('A' or 'B') behind the SM8b Set Symbol.

What do they mean? O_O Are they a replacement for the '1 EDITION' symbol? I learned a lot about First Editions (thanks to Fairy and Donavannj) but this is still an issue

So again: how can I tell if they are First Edition?

Same question for Japanese Shining Legends cards

 

[donavannj]

So, those have nothing to do with edition and everything to do with Japan's format rotations for the actual game part. They're basically indicators for a few different blocks of cards (IIRC, there's A, B, and C for blocks), and A block cards will become unusable in specific Japanese formats sometime later this year, iirc. B block will rotate sometime in 2020, and C block in either later 2020 or in 2021, but I can't say with certainty that these are the exact times these will happen, only with certainty of what they are for.

They're a new thing on Japanese cards.

There are no 1st Edition cards on anything after Japan's equivalent to XY Evolutions (this I found out just now as I don't personally actively collect Japanese cards, let alone first edition prints). The start of the Sun & Moon block in Japan phased them out. So there's no 1st Editions in GX Ultra Shiny.

 

[KarenHartman97]

So, those have nothing to do with edition and everything to do with Japan's format rotations for the actual game part. They're basically indicators for a few different blocks of cards (IIRC, there's A, B, and C for blocks), and A block cards will become unusable in specific Japanese formats sometime later this year, iirc. B block will rotate sometime in 2020, and C block in either later 2020 or in 2021, but I can't say with certainty that these are the exact times these will happen, only with certainty of what they are for.

They're a new thing on Japanese cards.

There are no 1st Edition cards on anything after Japan's equivalent to XY Evolutions (this I found out just now as I don't personally actively collect Japanese cards, let alone first edition prints). The start of the Sun & Moon block in Japan phased them out. So there's no 1st Editions in GX Ultra Shiny.

OK thanks for your nice reaction. It was really helpful. Thank you 😊