New Release: 2014 BBM Hawks Wakataka: Futures and Legends

After the busy month of June, July is practically empty when it comes to baseball cards. I'm still hammering out a couple new releases from that month, though.

Hawks Futures and Legends (Wakataka) focuses on the younger Hawks players in a 36-card box set. The base cards have what I can only consider to be a wood-grain laminate border. This border carries on to the back, where the same picture is reused from the front. Statistics through 2014 mid-May are included. Uebayashi here had played in only one game when this card was finalized! The copyright line on the back of these cards has [若鷹] (Wakataka). Cards 1-27 are active players, with the last nine being OB (retired) players.

Of course, autographed cards are the big draws, and all 36 players signed for the release. Active players have 30 copies each (though three players have 10, 20, or 25 copies). Retired players have 90 copies each, with one player signing only 59 copies.

There are nine foil signature cards. I'm aware of a silver foil version; the above card is numbered to 80.

Finally, there are five jersey cards using throwback jerseys from the Nankai days. I think they're all serial numbered to 100.

Each box set included the 36-card base set plus one of the special cards above for 4000 yen. 3000 sets were produced, as usual.