Chaos and Kanji is the blog where I write about my adventures through Japan!

Want Lists are located here. NPB Baseball Want List is located here.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Cool People, Cool Cards: The NPB Bulletin


NPB Card Guy finally made it to Japan in March, and we arranged to hang out on my two days off. He's written of our escapades together, and I did a good bit of card buying that weekend. Being that he's got a supplier already and pretty much everything he needs, I didn't really have anything to offer him as a gift or in trade. However, he had accumulated a bunch of nice older cards he didn't need any more that fit perfectly in my collection!
 He had a couple Korean cards, about the size of phone cards or credit cards (with rounded corners), attached to a backer card as you see above.
 The card looks like this, removed. Yeah, nothing too special from the above scan. Anyway, Korean cards are super-difficult to find so this was an awesome gift.
 He had a bunch of menkos. I didn't want to be greedy (all in all he brought a 200-count box full of cards to trade or sell) but I did find some I needed for my collection.
There were also some cards from the 1970s that, well, you don't see very often.
 The older cards were fun to thumb through.
 I don't know why, but I enjoy seeing foreigners on older cards than I do on newer releases.
 But menkos are cool, creases or not! Anything helps when you build a type collection.
 There is one set I had to have two cards from: this pin-back set from Yamakatsu. I should have asked to keep a pin too, but I didn't think about it at the time. He traded all the pins and cards I didn't want to the store owners.
 The Giants in this set don't have players on the pin backs. I had to have a cartoon!
The last thing Mr. NPB Card Guy tossed in was this silver signature promo of Rie Tanaka from SCM Magazine. It's fairly tough to find and is a great addition to my Women In Sports collection!

By the way, he also gave me several bags of American candy! I'm still trying to finish it off two months later.

Thanks again, NPB Card Guy (I'm not using his real name because I've never seen him post it, and I want to respect that) - I really enjoyed helping you plan your visit, and traveling from shop to shop with someone else! And thank you so much for your generosity. I know you said it was payback for my help in planning but I think you certainly did one better than that!

Tomorrow (again, yes, I promise) I have one more set of trade cards to show you, with an awesome (for me) ending!

4 comments:

  1. Nice Rie Tanaka card. I almost picked up an issue of that magazine, but the shipping to the US was a little crazy.

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  2. Nothing to offer me? Your services as guide and translator for starters. Not to mention the fact that you had found several stores that no one had mentioned to me before and you checked out a couple that I had heard about from others. The only store we went to that you had not previously gone too sucked (Niki). You're pretty much responsible for the fact that my want list is now less than 20 cards instead of 200+.

    In fact, I still feel like I owe you - I have 100+ Upper Deck Sydney Olympic Team cards sitting here on my desk with your name on them.

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  3. Fuji: shipping is crazy. And that's all there is to say about that! By the way I still have a stack growing for you (slowly). Are you interested in any unopened Calbee packs this year?

    NPB Card Guy: Thank you so much for your kindness! Did I email you yet? I found a few cards from your want lists two weeks ago - I think everything except the Century's Best 9 set.

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    Replies
    1. I'm definitely interested in a couple of packs for my unopened pack PC. LMK when you want to tally things up and I'll send payment.

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