The Black Flame Ninetales, and the Black Rays Zapdos and Mewtwo
Three English Base Set holos exist in two visibly different artwork designs inside the same Unlimited print run. Ninetales is the one collectors know, usually called the "Black Flame" Ninetales. Zapdos and Mewtwo do the same thing, and almost nobody references them.
All three are now indexed on TopVault as distinct variants: Black Flame Ninetales, Black Rays Zapdos, and Black Rays Mewtwo.
The true "Black Flame" Ninetales
The Black Flame design is not rare on its own. Every 1st Edition and every Shadowless Ninetales has it. So does the Japanese Base Set printing.
The rare variant only exists in the Unlimited print. The standard Unlimited Ninetales replaced the dark flame shape on the right side of the artwork with something appearing more blue. A smaller portion of the Unlimited run kept the older design.
So the more appropriate name is: Black Flame Base Set Unlimited Ninetales.
Zapdos and Mewtwo "Black Rays" variations
This is the part that deserves more attention. On the thread for The Black Flame Ninetales, the collector pinn033 shows clear photos of the variations.
The Zapdos variant carries solid black rays radiating out from the Pokémon over a heavily saturated magenta background. The standard Unlimited Zapdos uses a more purple field. It can be difficult to recognize each variation in auction photos.
Worth noting that the Base Set 2 Zapdos uses artwork that resembles the Black Rays version, with the same dark rays coming from the center. The holo is the cosmos pattern rather than the Base Set treatment. It is a useful reference for what the design looks like when you have no Base Set copy to compare against.
Mewtwo is subtler but follows the same rule. The variant shows dark angular rays behind Mewtwo and a strong red-magenta edge around the body. The standard Unlimited Mewtwo renders that same background as a soft purple haze with the shapes mostly washed out.
Both Mewtwo cards in one frame under the same light, standard Unlimited on the left and Black Rays on the right:
The magenta shift is the thing to train your eye on. It carries across the whole card rather than sitting only in the artwork window, so the art border and the text areas warm up too. This is also why the difference is hard to trust from two separate listing photos. Different lighting and white balance can invent or hide it, and a single frame holding both cards is the only reliable comparison.
In each case the variant matches the Shadowless artwork and the standard Unlimited card is the one that changed.
Where these prints come from
These come from what collectors now call the "Late USA" print runs, or the "5th print". The collectors ItemFinderCo and Nightvulture both place the printing style at around 2001, well after the original Unlimited run. On these late runs the artwork was returned to the Shadowless design, and the same printing style shows up across holos and non-holos in Base Set, Fossil, and Jungle.
Two things anchor the date. The cards turn up in "Made in USA" 1999-2000 packs, which carry the curved WOTC logo introduced in late 1999. A UK box from the same 1999-2000 window produces no black flames, so this belongs to the USA printing rather than to the packaging year.
There are some identifying traits for the printing style that go beyond the three artwork changes:
- Magenta saturation. Magenta is much more pronounced.
- Bright border. A rich yellow rather than the usual yellow or orange.
- HP cyan dots. Cyan dots sit around the red "HP" (to hide misalignment).
- Enlarged plate overlay. The inner rectangle inside the outer border is slightly larger.
There was more than one Late (post 1999-2000 copywrite) USA-printed run. You may sort them by the angle of the magenta halftone screen, recorded as -15 or +15 degrees, the same kind of measurement that separates the Base Set alpha and beta stamps. Both angles turn up on Black Flame Ninetales and Black Rays Mewtwo, so these three cards were printed more than once inside that late window.
Note that no grading company labels the "Black Rays" variants. But you may browse the three variations on TopVault: Black Flame Ninetales, Black Rays Zapdos, Black Rays Mewtwo.