Chronicles was a white-bordered set of
reprints for
Magic: The Gathering, released in
August of 1995. Cards from
Arabian Nights,
Antiquities,
Legends, and
The Dark were printed in this set, and had the
expansion symbol of the original set on each card. It was a 125-card set, though with only 116 unique cards - the
Urza's lands were printed with four different artworks. A total of approximately 180 million cards were printed for this set.
The rationale behind it was that those first four sets sold quickly, and were not available to many players, and as the game had grown in popularity, the older cards were hard to find even in trading. Chronicles allowed newer players the chance to get some of the cards from these sets, though none of the strongest, overpowered ones.
The release of Chronicles made a lot of players happy, as they were suddenly able to get a hold of cards that were released before they got into the game, or were unable to get even when they were in print, due to demand. In the process, a few people here and there were very upset, as they had traded to get a hold of some of the cards, and suddenly the value went down, as they became easier to get. The five Elder Dragon Legends, for example, shot down in value. So did City of Brass and Storm Seeker, as they weren't hard to find anymore.
The set was also released in other countries, as Renaissance. Wizards of the Coast had made the policy that no card would be printed in any language in a white border version without a black border version first. This set was printed with black borders in these other countries to make sure this policy would be followed, with black border versions available before they'd consider rotating the cards into the base set.
The rarity listings here are slightly different from the actual rarities. This set was not printed with common, uncommon, and rare sheets. There were only common and uncommon sheets, with cards appearing in different numbers on these sheets. Cards that appeared two, three, or four times on the common sheet are listed as common. Cards that appeared once on the common sheet, or three times on the uncommon sheet, are listed as uncommon. (As there were three common sheets printed to every uncommon, they were printed in the same numbers.) Cards that appeared only once on the uncommon sheet are listed as rare.
Artifact
Black
Blue
Green
Red
White
Multicolor
Land