alpha has a black border with really weird rounded corners.
beta has a black border with normal corners.
Unlimited is white bordered and still uses the word TAP.
Revised is white bordered and has a "washed out" look compared to Unlimited.
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Unlimited and Revised are white-bordered, and Alpha and Beta are black-bordered. Alpha cards have rounder corners than Beta cards. Revised cards have a black border within the white, while Unlimited cards don't have a border that visible. It's slightly blue, as far as I can tell.
Click on it, and you can choose the different editions you want. This will show you the difference between an unlimited and a revised card. As what the rest said, Alpha has very rounded corners. Other expansions do not have these kind of rounded borders. Both alpha and beta are black bordered, however if you put an alpha card directly onto a beta one, you could still see the corners of the beta card since the borders of the alpha card is typically smaller in area as well, and as said earlier its rounded.
Most of these answers were really good, but I seen one that was horribly misleading. Revised(3rd Ed.) and Unlimited(2nd) BOTH have a thin black border WITHIN the outside white border. The difference is that 2nd Edition(Unlimited) cards will have a bevel just inside the thin black line leading further into the artwork and text of the card. Revised(3rd Ed) cards will ONLY have the thin black border separating the text and artwork of the card from the outside white border. If you run across a white bordered card that has NO inner thin black border separating the contents of the card, make sure to check the bottom left corner. It will be from 4th or 5th Edition or even later, if later you can obviously just see the set symbol, but 4th will be dated 1995 while 5th will be dated 1997. I tried to be as detailed as possible but if anyone is still uncertain please feel free to respond or message me if possible. This is only my second post and I'm new here so not quite sure how that works but whenever I do happen to see it I will be sure to respond. I know this thread was originally asking for the difference between Alpha and Beta, and generally besides possibly some very slight color variances on some cards, the best way is to tell by the difference in the corners as was correctly addressed already in this thread. If anyone missed that, Beta cards will have regular corners like any other card. Alpha will have more rounded corners on them. If you're not sure what you're looking for it can be tough to spot. However, if you are in that situation, simpto a (sorry accidentally clicked post and have to edit). Ok, stick the cars you presume is Alpha on top of a modern cars and simply see if they line up perfectly or not. If they're not lined up and the corners of the modern card are protruding further than the other, you clearly have an Alpha card. I know this was a crazy-long post, but I know it's a very important issue. As we all know, when buying/selling/trading in really old cards there can be A LOT of money involved when talking about the more rare cards out there. Anyway, hope this helps.
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beta has a black border with normal corners.
Unlimited is white bordered and still uses the word TAP.
Revised is white bordered and has a "washed out" look compared to Unlimited.
Currently offering 2 non-foil Kolighan's Command for a Date Stamped foil!
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Click on it, and you can choose the different editions you want. This will show you the difference between an unlimited and a revised card. As what the rest said, Alpha has very rounded corners. Other expansions do not have these kind of rounded borders. Both alpha and beta are black bordered, however if you put an alpha card directly onto a beta one, you could still see the corners of the beta card since the borders of the alpha card is typically smaller in area as well, and as said earlier its rounded.
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