Last Card: 2006 Lotte Pro Yakyu Seals

Lotte has its hands in a lot of things. At its heart a chocolate company, Lotte also has a chain of fast food restaurants in Korea and Japan and the most popular amusement park in Korea, called Lotte World. They own two baseball teams as well: the Giants in KBO and Marines in NPB. And I'm sure there's even more I've forgotten or just don't know about.

For collectors, Lotte is responsible for Bikkuriman, a very popular run of square-shaped stickers packaged with wafer candies. 

From 2006 to 2008, they played around with baseball stickers. In 2006, those came in two forms. One was a Bikkuriman set, featuring baseball players in Bikkuriman-style art. The other was a traditional card-sized sheet of stickers.

The Bikkuriman stickers would continue for three years, while the card-sized sticker sheets only lasted two years. Bikkuriman promotions occur occasionally still, but no full set has been issued since 2008.

I finally finished my 2006 sticker set, completing my run of all five sets. The last card I needed was this Kanemoto sheet, and I ended up buying a lot including this card out of desparation.

I'm certainly happy to cross this off my want list!

New Release: 2018 Calbee Series 1

The first of three series of Calbee cards hit shelves last month, with the usual selection of base and insert cards.

As with recent years, the base set has 72 cards (#1-72). Calbee again decided to go with Japanese (kanji) names on the front.

Dora-Ichi is a 12-card insert set featuring the 2017 first-round draft picks.

The entire first series is catalogued in four Checklists.

Moving to premium inserts, three Legend cards highlight the careers of three recently-retired stars.

And the usual 24-card Starcard insert set rounds out the cards you can find in bags of chips. Starcard has a gold foil signature parallel, again as usual.

There are also Lucky Cards which can be redeemed for small albums. Once again, this is pretty standard for the past decade or so.

The first special set of the year is Average Leaders, with 12 cards highlighting each team's best hitter. These are available in special boxes which I've never seen.

New Release: 2018 BBM 1st Version

The most exciting release in Japan each year is probably 1st Version. It's the biggest single set (or series) to come out in Japan each year, and signifies the start of the season.

BBM's flagship set is also its most affordable per-card. 10-card packs cost 300 yen, with 20 packs per box and 15 boxes per case.

The base set is #1-336. Cards 1-324 are regular cards, as seen above. Career stats are on the back (see, Topps, it can be done!). This year's design is very simple, leaving lots of space for photos.

Cards #325-336 are team checklists. (Why don't I have a team checklist type card?! I need to fix that...)  You can see the team checklist set in this post. So, sorry, but no back scan.

BBM's flagship is parallel city. Here's a breakdown:

• Silver Foil Signature (sample above)
• Gold Foil Signature #/100
• Holofoil Signature #/50
• Red Foil Signature #/25
• Green Foil Signature #/10
• Rookie Parallel Foilboard #/200
• Rookie Parallel Holo Foilboard #/100
• Rookie Parallel Lame #/50 
• First Draft Pick Blue Foil Signature
• Secret Photo Variation

Eight players per team have signature parallels. Rookie Parallels vary per team based on the number of rookies in the set. There are 12 First Draft Pick cards. And 12 Secret cards, one per team.

This year's cross-brand insert set is Cross Universe, with a planetary theme. There are 36 cards in the 1st Version set, three per team. There are three parallels in addition to the base cards:

• Gold Foil #/100
• Holo Foil #/50
• 1/1

There are three inserts found in 1st Version packs. Each set has 12 cards, one per team, and are the usual "shiny limited card with no real reason" insert.

Gemstone has a sparkly background, but could have been better if they had actually used a more gemstone-looking background. The background doesn't actually sparkle, it just has that style of design. Two parallels can be found: Holofoil #/100, and Special Holofoil #/50.

Japonism has a very Japanese design: ukiyoe art and sakura (cherry blossoms) take up the background. The font is even traditionally-styled. Again, there are two parallels: Purple #/100, Pink #/50.

 3D Cross Universe uses a similar design to the regular Cross Universe cards, but with a border and a 3D effect. I haven't seen these in person yet. They aren't serial numbered and have no parallels.

Three Memorabilia cards were produced. Dennis Sarfate and Yoshihiro Maru both have jersey cards. BBM's checklist identifies the relics as being home jerseys, though their preview image (above) labels it as a visitor jersey. #M1 and M2 are #/200, with #/25 patch parallels. #M3 is a dual jersey card #/10, patch #/5.

Finally, there are a few autograph sets.

Cross Universe can be found as Cross Signature cards, in a horizontal design. These are #/30 or less, and 59 players are on the checklist. Ten teams appear, with six players per team. Except the Hawks, with five players. Missing are the Carp and Giants.

 Three Combo Autograph cards are #/5 each.

Finally, there are seven Special Autograph cards, #/5 or less.