I mentioned that Calbee showed up over the weekend at one of the card stores, and it was just making its way onto a grocery store's shelf Monday afternoon. I bought 10 bags then, and you can see the last five packs' contents below.
Meanwhile, I have yet to see it anywhere else. I haven't been going from market to market, scouring the aisles, hoping for a magical find. But three or four days later it's not in any of the convenience stores or local grocery stores. While I plan to split my purchases over time, I'm kind of hoping to pull a lucky card and gather the other insert/subset cards I need for a proper post. Anyway, here are the cards from the other five packs:
Pack six contained two more base cards. On one hand, I'll need a bunch to build a set. On the other hand, I want to get the special cards in my hands.
Another Starcard in pack seven. Shinnosuke Abe of the Giants, one of the best in the NPB.
A couple more base cards await in pack 8, but another superstar, Kenta Maeda of the Carp, was very welcome.
Pack nine brought another insert. But first, Kakunaka. Japanese names are fun to say.
Climax Series is the Japanese version of league playoffs. Japan has two leagues but no divisions. Teams that finish second and third in each league play each other in the first stage (best of 3), with the winner facing the league champions in Stage 2 (best of six; the league champion receives a one game advantage and home field advantage).
Pack ten had two inserts! The first was this Japan Series card showing the victory celebration in Game 7.
The second insert was another Starcard insert. This one has a foil signature and different sparkle pattern (sparkling stars). To answer Jason's question on yesterday's post, I'm pretty sure Calbee has had one parallel for an insert set every year for quite some time. Unfortunately, my copy of Sports Card Magazine that includes all the Calbee prices only mentions a couple parallel sets.
Hopefully I can get my hands on more chips in the near future...
From personal experience and what I see on Jambalaya, Calbee has done a gold foil signature parallel of the Star cards since 2011. Other than a signature parallel of the Hideki Matsui 2003 Title Holder reprint last year, there haven't been any other parallels during that time.
ReplyDeleteNice that you could find some and get a few good ones.
ReplyDeleteI have been looking all over Nagoya for them in every convenience store and grocery store I can find but haven`t found a single bag anywhere. It is getting a bit frustrating with the season having already started not to be able to get any of this year`s cards, I wonder why its so hard this year. Last year I had the same problem with the higher series, but at least for series 1 most of the conbinis had them.
I notice that a lot of the shops still have Calbee soccer card chips on the shelf and I`m wondering if they might be waiting until they sell off the last of those before they switch to baseball. That is the only theory I have at this point!
Sean, I've been looking in all the convenience and grocery stores around my town and have yet to find them. At least two of the Mint card shops have them, but the only place I have been able to buy them was the Mega Donki store one city over. It might be worth checking there.
ReplyDeleteI have seen lots of soccer and Doraemon chips on the shelves and I agree that they are probably waiting for those to sell off first. I just bought a ton more chips from Donki, since I'm trying to put together the set pack by pack (bag by bag?). I'd love to pull one of those lucky cards, too, to get the binder and special cards.
The "Lucky Cards" are 3-D. Very cool.
ReplyDelete3000 yen for a redemption card. Hopefully I can get my own or find one cheaper...much cheaper.
DeleteSo what does the redemption card get you? Is it only one of the two 3-D cards or is it both? I can't figure out why the redemption card is 3000 yen but the Norimoto and Ogawa cards are only 2000 yen each.
DeleteShould be both cards plus the binder (card holder). I don't know why it's so much cheaper.
DeleteCoincidentally, for your and anyone else's information, I saw a bunch of the gold signature Starcard parallels in one of the shops priced from 1200-2000 yen each.