1998 BBM BayStars Get the Flag! Part I

The 1998 BayStars team was pretty good. I'm not going to get into the details, but the team won the Nippon Series for the first time since 1960 - that's 38 years. Their opponents, on the other hand, were the dynastic Seibu Lions. The dynasty was basically over by 1994, but they won the league championship in 1997 as well.

To commemorate the BayStars' success in 1998, BBM issued a limited box set. That set was so popular and sold out so fast that BBM created a second series. The two series are numbered sequentially; series one is #1-40 while series 2 is #41-80. There are some similarities in the sets: both start with a collection of single player cards (the same players in the same order), followed by a handful of subsets. You'll series one's subsets below; series two had six retired players and three congratulatory cards.

Series One was limited to 5000 sets, while Series Two was doubled to 10,000. Both sets retailed for 2000 yen each (about $20). 

Series One is very difficult to find. I have never seen single cards in shops. I've found some singles from Series Two. Recently, I found a good deal on the first series set and snatched it up for my collections. Many of the cards are off to the type collection, while a couple others found homes in other collections. But before I split everything up, I scanned in the fronts to share here, so you can see a full set.

So, without further delay, here is Series One in card order.

1-3

4-6

7-9

10-12

13-14

15-16

17-19

20-22

23-25

26-28

29-31

32

33-34

35-37

38-40

The final three cards use gold foil for the text at the bottom.

Gripes about this 23 year old set include a lack of highlights. We get three memorable game cards in a subset, but all three just show the team celebrating. It would have been better to see more season highlights and include photos of those actual highlights. The regular card photos all look like ones you'd find in any BBM set, either, so there aren't many good reasons to buy this set.

The best card in the set is obviously the one with the bullpen car. I'm not knocking the set, it's just rare to see a bullpen car on Japanese cardboard, and it seems to be an action photo as well!

Just so you can see both sides, here is Bobby Rose's regular card in the first series set.

Just FYI, I don't have a second series set and I'm not planning a post right now specifically featuring Part II. So here is Takashi Saitoh's card (#YB42), front and back. His first series card is #2 if you want to see the photo they used for the front. Judge for yourself.

Until next time...

Another Set Marches Forward

 Yesterday, I shared my recent 1995 BBM finds. The other major Japanese set I'm working on is the 1996 BBM set. It, too, has several short-printed subsets in the regular series and a high-number update series for one team. I haven't been focusing as much on this set as I have the 1995 series, so I am further behind, but I did finish off the regular cards for the regular set with these three:

I'm not sure why the Lions were so hard to find for 1996. Perhaps it's just luck. Nishiguchi was the PL MVP in his career year of 1997, though he put up good numbers throughout his 21 year career. He's now a pitching coach for the Lions. Katori played for the Giants and Lions for about 19 years and posted good numbers, and now works with the Japan National Team. Koishizawa apparently only saw action with the top team in 1998. While Nishiguchi and Katori had long playing careers and are still active in the NPB, there are other big names that you would think would be tougher to find.

Speaking of tougher to find, with these three cards scratched off the list, all that's left are short prints. I still need two Dragons cards from the regular series and four Record Breaker subset cards. And from the high series Dragons cards, I'm still missing twenty cards! Maybe I'll have some luck card hunting later this year.

Until next time...

Slowly But Surely, A Set Moves Closer to Completion

Pick a regular card from a major card company from 1952 onward. A Topps card will most likely be your choice, but Donruss, Score, Fleer, Upper Deck, Bowman, Sportsflics, Ted Williams Card Company. Any of those can probably be found right now. Almost every one of them is on eBay or can be found on Sportlots or COMC. (I said regular card. Don't bring up the 1990 Topps George W Bush card.) I'm sure there's a 1952 Mickey Mantle out there, and if there isn't, it's probably available in a big auction sometime in the next month or two.

Now try to find Japanese singles, especially from pre-2001. It gets a lot more difficult. There are regular-issue sets from even 10 years ago that can be really tough to find. I'm two cards away from finishing the 2008 Calbee set, but those two cards seem to have never been issued. (They have, I just can't find them for sale now.) Card shops usually carry minimal inventory, and other online resources are limited almost exclusively to Yahoo! Japan Auctions. There is no COMC or Sportlots here. Japanese people generally don't use eBay (which is why YJA still exists.)

The 1995 BBM set is one of the toughest to finish. There are several short-printed subsets and a high-number update series which makes one team's (and several other players') cards short-printed.

I have picked up a few cards to get me closer to a full set. In fact, I'm pretty close to finishing the regular set without the high numbers.

First, I finished off the Untouchable Records subset with these two cards.

Next, there were two four cards from the Then and Now subset I needed.

I managed to get all four together along with some extras.

Do you remember Pete Incaviglia? He managed to hit 206 home runs over 12 seasons with six teams. He spent the 1995 season with the Chiba Lotte Marines, and as such ended up on this high-series card.

Another former MLBer is Julio Franco, who also was with the Marines in 1995 and thus ended up in the high series. 

With these cards obtained over the past six weeks or so, I now need just four regular-series cards (including one Ichiro puzzle subset card) and nine high number cards! It would be awesome to finish this set this year, but those high numbers are a doozy.