Pokémon Fossil Set (Italian) — 17 Cards Signed by Mitsuhiro Arita

The Fossil expansion, released in 1999, was the third set of the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the one that brought the legendary birds into the game. This collection gathers seventeen cards from the set, all signed by Mitsuhiro Arita, the illustrator responsible for some of the franchise's most recognisable artwork.

The group runs from the holographic cards — Articuno, Moltres, Muk, Raichu and Zapdos — through their non-holographic counterparts and a further run including Gastly, Magmar, Weezing, Grimer, Horsea, Krabby and Shellder, with several pieces carrying double signatures in both Japanese and Latin script. Every card is certified PSA Auto, which documents the authenticity of each autograph and records its condition individually: a degree of verification that is unusual on a signed set assembled card by card, and the reason this is a coherent collection rather than a gathering of loose pieces. Arita's illustrations gave Fossil its identity, and a certified, signed run of this size is a serious proposition for collectors of vintage Pokémon.