The first issue of 2014 came out in late November last year, when BBM released its annual Historic Collection offering. This year, the focus is on NPB players who were successful as teenagers - basically, those who went from high school straight into the NPB.
The fronts are fairly simple with the same basic design as other Historic Collection sets. The bottoms and backs of the cards can have different color tinting - green (above), blue, orange/yellow, and purple.
Backs include important achievements, a biographical summary, and career statistics. Cards are numbered in the upper-left corner and all carry a 3-digit number (001, for instance). The copyright line includes the text "BBM HISTORIC COLLECTION 2014" on the base cards. There are 144 cards in the base set.
A 12-card Special Promotions set was released with the same design as the base cards but with red tinting on the bottom and back and a red-tinted background for the photo, and "BBM STADIUM EVENT SPECIAL CARD" printed on the front. These cards have SP- prefix card numbers.
There are two insert sets. The largest is Legend of Teenagers. Each of the 12 blue horizontal cards has two players from one team; I'm not sure but I think there's an older and a younger player on each card, both of whom played in the NPB as teenagers. Cards have a foil finish. Takahashi, above, is turning 20 in the next week and has played the two seasons for the Dragons; Morino had a fairly weak start as an 18 year old, but returned to the top-level team after he matured a bit (though he wasn't exactly successful at the plate until abotu 2003) and is still with the Dragons.
The backs use the same photos (with backgrounds) and basic biographical information about both.
A tan/brown parallel for Legend of Teenagers was issued with "BOOKSTORE SPECIAL CARD" notated on the front and BS- prefixes on the back.
The Once Teenages' Now (sic) insert set has two players from different teams on each card, with six total cards in the set. These players are all ones who started as teenagers and (arguably) are still successful.
Again, the backs recycle the front photos and include the backgrounds without much other than basic biographical information.
A green parallel of Once Teenages' Now was released for special events. Like the base parallel, these contain "BBM STADIUM EVENT SPECIAL CARD" on the front, and are numbered with an SE- prefix.
By my count, 39 players signed cards for the set, with 40-110 copies per card.
Legends of Teenagers is quite an interesting concept, to say the least.
ReplyDeleteThe term Legend tends to be misused in Japan, but it certainly sounds better than "List of Teenagers [Who Played in the NPB]".
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