The last Rookies & Young Stars set I have to bring you so far features members of the ORIX Buffaloes. Issued by Frontier International (AKA Front Runner Trading Cards), the cards are sold as complete sets of 25 cards plus one random autographed card.
The base cards again use black borders. The ORIX fronts have more of a framed border, with a "cracked" design around three of the edges. The backs are identical to the other Rookies & Young Stars issued this year. My scanner can't pick up the bottom border on the front, which has the player's name and designation (one manager, 15 stars, 9 young stars). Like the other sets, the nine rookie cards are autographed super-short prints.
As with all Frontier products, autographs are the main reason to buy their box sets, and there are four sets.
As previously mentioned, there are nine rookies with autographed cards.
Authentic Signatures has 27 different single-signed cards, plus three "Authentic Dual Signatures" cards.
There's a single Golden Glove Winner's Signature card. Note the misspelling on this promo image (just like the BayStars promo).
Finally, there are three Top Draft Pick Dual Signatures cards. I wasn't able to find an image of one of these cards.
Box sets retail for about 8000 yen ($80) each. I didn't see any checklists so I can't figure out a print run, but my estimate is that there are less than 1000 sets based on the print runs for the other team sets. I've decided to go ahead and pick up base sets for all the teams this year. I might grab the Season Summary sets and R&YS sets from last year, too, if I can find them all. The designs are decent enough and prices are generally low enough on the secondary market.
Looking at the whole base set over at Jamabalaya, I'm kind of amused by how many players are shown wearing an Orix jersey over street clothes - Yoshitomo Tani, Estaban German and Katsuki Yamazaki. Even the promo card for Teppei is like this although the regular card shows him batting in a full uniform.
ReplyDeleteAhh, the shortcuts you take to get a set out as early in the season as possible.
To be fair, Frontier isn't the first card company to do a "jersey over street clothes" card of Tani this year - BBM's Orix 25th Anniversary set did it too.
Perhaps he's just too hard to get on the field. That wouldn't be a good sign, though.
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