Just in Time for the 2018 Olympics: 2000 Olympic Set Finished!

What must be the most comprehensive Olympic team set ever issued is finally in the books.

Upper Deck and MRM released a huge set of Japanese National Team players who were slated to compete in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. I know not every player on every national team isn't there - several baseball players are missing for sure. But speaking of which:

 Sugiura was the final player I needed for the baseball team set. But I'm not going for the baseball team set, I want the whole 264 card set. So in jogs this guy:

Hidetoshi Nakata is one of the key cards in the set, though it's really hard to say who have the true most important cards in the set. Some of the judo cards cost me almost as much as this card, and baseball players naturally are more in demand.

These two cards finished my set... sort of. After getting both in the mail from a Yahoo seller, I sorted out all of my cards, and found I was missing the last card in the set (a checklist) and I had two of a different checklist. I scrounged around all of my boxes to see if I overlooked it (and I might still have), but I didn't find it. So I stopped off at a local shop and was happy to find they had one, so while the checklist is technically my last card to finish the set, I'm counting Nakata as the final card I needed!

Once I get the whole set scanned, I'm going to consider how I can present it all on the blog... 264 cards are a lot!

Until next time...

Breaking Boxes Badly: Upper Deck 2000 Japan Sydney Olympic Team (Box 2)

Yesterday I dropped 15 packs of Olympic history in your laps. Let's slice open the other 15 packs and see where that gets me.

But first, I mentioned that I was wondering what the redemption cards were for. A little research did give me some information. There are 44 "medal" cards as such:

• 5 Gold Medal cards
• 31 Silver Medal cards
• 8 Bronze Medal cards

These seem to be tied to specific players or teams. I don't know what they look like or how rare they are right now.

 This box starts with a baseball player, which is a good sign. There are 19 in the set, including some pretty big names.

 Two for two! So far, so good. Even if I do recognize that swimming card from yesterday.

 Another checklist. That's good, because I need all of them.

 And another baseball card. I recognize that swimming card in the bottom row; I think that's number three between two boxes.

 No baseball here. I recognize that bald wrestling guy from the first box. You'd think they could find a more flattering picture of him.

 This pack has a baseball player and a couple soccer players. Those are the two most popular sports in Japan, so getting as many of them as possible is a good thing.

 More soccer and baseball. I'll take it!

 There's baseball here, though it's a duplicate.

" If it hadn't been for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college."

 I recognize several cards here.

 If you can't tell, I've run out of things to say about the cards. There's only so much random commentary I can give you, you know.

 However, since we're talking about Olympics, I am looking forward to the 2016 Topps Olympics set. I will definitely get the base set, and I hope to find some good relics and autographs to go with it.

 This is the first and last Olympic set issued in Japan. There are some "National Team" sets issued by BBM but they focus on individual sports - gymnastics, soccer, baseball, swimming, badminton, and so on.

 It's not an exciting shot, but that card of Tomohiro Kuroki gives a good idea of what Japan's baseball uniforms looked like.

And that finishes the second box.

With two boxes, I have a total of 300 cards. There are 270 base cards (264 in the set) and 30 Sport Category cards (29 in the set). After sorting the two boxes, about 100 of the 300 cards - one third of the two boxes - were duplicates. There were a couple triplicates in there too.

Thanks to NPB Card Guy, I had a good start on this set, around 30% of all the cards. But there was overlap there too, so I have only 228 cards of the set now (78%). I am missing 65 cards. I'll pick them up at card shops as I can. Unfortunately, I'm missing some key baseball players, too, so finishing this set will take a good bit of searching and possibly cash.

My want list for this set is linked below. Cards I have will have an "x" in the left column. If the list doesn't show up, it means I completed the set!

Breaking Boxes Badly: Upper Deck 2000 Japan Sydney Olympic Team (Box 1)

The award for longest post title of the year will probably go to this pair of posts. Issued with a 1999 copyright, this set was probably actually issued in 2000.

 The boxes are pretty standard for Japanese card products. While BBM uses the American-style flat boxes that take up a lot of shelf space, most card packs come in a small standing box with about 10-15 packs each. You can see the front and back of the box here; note the 1999 copyright on the Olympic logo.

 The two sides of the box show all the sport logos for events held in the 2000 games. If you can't count, there are 29 sports represented in these packs.

 Speaking of packs, there are 15 packs in one box, and each pack has 10 cards. The full checklist has 264 regular cards (259 athlete cards and five checklists), plus 29 "Sport Category" (misspelled on the box and packs) cards which are numbered separately from the base set. The Sport Category cards come one per pack, which makes them just about as rare as the regular cards. The packs also mention redemption cards. Each pack has one information card, which I'm guessing would be replaced by a special redemption card in very rare cases.

One box has 150 cards, which means it takes at least two boxes (with perfect collation) to build a set. At the original price of 300 yen per pack, you'll need to drop at least $100 to finish a base set. (In Japan, discounts on full-box prices are slim-to-none.)

You'll notice that the packs are prepared for hanging, as many stores used to - and still do - hang products on wire grids instead of using shelving. That "pack ripping" triangle is worthless, by the way. I've never found one to work properly and more likely you'll damage some corners than get the pack opened properly. Thank you, scissors!

I seem to recall seeing this set listed in Engel's 7th Edition guide, but I could be wrong. I can't find it now. I was hoping to find a bit more information about the set. I don't see it in any of my issues of SCM, either, though the set could be listed in one that I don't have. My biggest interest is the redemption card/set. (More on this tomorrow.)

Anyway, on to the packs. I just shot pictures of the cards as I opened the packs. The Sport Category cards were inserted somewhere toward the back, usually the 7th or 8th card, while the information card came at the very end.

 There really isn't much to say about the card subjects, since the athletes are pretty much all retired. This is 15-year-old product, you know.

 The cards carry Upper Deck logos on the packaging and such, but MRM is the company that actually did the licensing. The design replicates the 1999 Victory baseball set.

 If you enlarge the picture, you'll see that the sport category card has a grey, low-contrast image of the sport itself. I like the design of those cards. The sport name has gold foil.

 As for the individual sports, athletics gets the most cards - the first 40 cards in the set. Baseball (19) and soccer (18) seem to be next.

Some sports have only one athlete represented (diving and tennis), and several sports have only two cards.

For some reason, the horizontal cards look better than the vertical ones. That might just be luck.

 I believe this pack holds my first of the 19 baseball cards. There will be more.

 There are lots of rhythmic gymnastics cards in these packs. There are only 6 in the set, and I had them all before opening these boxes, which makes them all duplicates.

 Here's another baseball player! And a checklist.

 A horizontal abseball player, and a couple swimmers.

 Have a look at this pack, and compare the cards to the first pack. I see at least three duplicates without really searching. Collation wasn't exactly great.

 Lots of softball cards in the packs means several duplicates there, too.

 If you're interested in details about the baseball players in this set, have a look at NPB Card Guy's post on the set.

 And here you can see a duplicate for the Sports Category card set back-to-back.

And that completes box one. I sorted both boxes together, so you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how I did in the end. I'm going to go ahead and say now that the obvious collation issues are a definite downer.