First print — "Red version" back text

The last paragraph on the back of the box names the wrong game. Its first sentence tells you to collect 139 Pokémon "playing the Red version" — on a box for Blue. Corrected boxes say "Blue version" in that spot, and point you at a friend who owns Red. One word, and it is the only thing that separates this print from the second.

Read that sentence last, though. Check the screenshot first, because it is visible across a room:

The back screenshot shows Sandshrew against Meowth. Prints one and two both carry it; prints three and four show Pidgey against Rattata. So Sandshrew does not mean first print — it means first or second, and then the text decides. The guide's argument for putting this box earliest is that Sandshrew and Meowth are both Red-exclusive, which makes them misleading on a Blue box and a sensible thing to replace.

Everything below is shared with the second print, so none of it identifies a first print on its own:

• Front ESRB badge: white, and visibly pixelated rather than cleanly printed.
• Box bottom: double-ended, not the later Y-fold.
• Cartridge insert: glued to the inside of the box, not a removable tray.
• Folding tab code: U/DMG-APEE USA — note the leading U/, which prints three and four drop.
• Fiber stamp: 100% / 55%.
• Cartridge: DMG-APEE-USA, white ESRB badge on the label.

So the check is two steps. Sandshrew on the back narrows it to prints one and two. The last paragraph on the back decides which.

The rarity here comes from a hobbyist survey, not a production figure. adamw sampled 203 US Blue copies in all conditions and put this print at about 9.85% of them, and at about 3.57% of the sealed copies — the scarcest of the four by a wide margin.

The print order is the collecting community's reading. Prints one and two share the folding tab code U/DMG-APEE USA, and adamw argues the wording was corrected inside one run rather than across two. Either way the box either says Red or it does not, so the identification stands whichever way that question falls.

Still wanted: photographs of this back, and a date code off a "Red version" box. The earliest date code recorded on any Blue box so far is 990727 on a second print, so a first print should read earlier and nobody has posted one.

Source: Community variant guide, cross-checked against graded auction listings — the Elite Fourum Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow variant guide, with the population survey by adamw (elitefourum.com and videogamesage.com, read 22 October 2026).