Pokemon Gold Silver Board Game Rarity Issues? Red Box Questions

[WingsOfMasquerade]

So I have this pokemon board game...
And it's the Master Trainer Gold/Silver one that's in the red box. I guess usually the box is black? It's complete except for the yellow figure of Ash. So, I go to look it up on Ebay and it sells seemingly between 50 and THREE HUNDRED and Fifty???

How is this a thing?
I have never seen such a variation or prices on seemingly the same red boxed game?
How do you tell if you have the very pricey one?
Cause I sure...can't. Like it doesn't say 'which edition' or something anywhere that I can find. I also don't have the instructions. I tried looking it up, but all I get are board game reference sites and things that tell you what all should be in there (like the green clips, pog-looking tokens, etc) and how to play it but nothing about how there's some apparent mega-money version.

Any insight of what to do about this game would be much appreciated,

[banditpony]

I'd read the descriptions of each sold listing. It is more dependent on if it has all the pieces and parts. (or at least, the important ones).

[Squirrelypaws]

The black-box version is the original, with 150 Pokemon. The red-box version is the "updated" Gold/Silver version, released when Pokemon Gold/Silver came out and the number of Pokemon increased from 150 to 250. If I remember right, they're essentially the same game, just more Pokemon in the red one.

A lot of merch from that Gold/Silver era, including this game, is pretty rare and sought after, I think *because* a lot of it was essentially the same game/thing as the original, so a lot of people that already had the original ones didn't get the G/S versions.

I'm not personally too "up" on the current values of Pokemon stuff, but looking on eBay sold items right now, I see one listed as 99% complete that went for $200. And there's one currently active with three days left and a bid for $145. If yours is only missing that one piece, I'd say it's definitely worth somewhere in the $150 - $200 range, if not more.