I'm about ready to start posting my Taiwan card finds. But first, a two-part post on Mint Tachikawa, a small mall card store located on the east side of Tokyo.
This post will mostly focus on normal issues, while the second part will show the mother load of oddballs. Here is a BBM team set card.
This year's Giants set had a nice simple design.
It's a bit oddball, but not too crazy: a gaming card using WBC players. This might have been the only card from the set in the cheap box I looked through.
It's a Sportsflix card! Kind of. BBM issued this a long time ago (relatively). The design reminds me of Fleer releases, especially the back.
Fighters foil. I spent a long time looking through a box of 30 or 50 yen cards (I don't remember exactly - most likely the latter).
This is a nice BBM insert I found pretty cheap.
I didn't expect to find a nice insert as cheap as this was.
2003 BBM.
Team Captain insert set.
Promotion. As in, promo card. I've been noticing these more and more lately. Actually, the recently-released Genesis set seems to have promos for every insert set (at a different Mint location), but they are priced pretty high.
BBM's Touch The Game was the major relic/high end release until this year, when Genesis replaced it. Usually the base cards also carry premium prices.
Another insert...
And another (Calbee) insert...
A foil card. Note the blue glove.
Insert...
Insert...
Promo parallel.
Hm. Didn't we see this card set already?
Foil etching? White glove?
More...
This is a Prime Nine gaming card. The back, like a deck of cards, contains a generic set logo.
Foil parallel.
Foil parallel.
Foil parallel.
Not a foil parallel! Yet, another premium card at a good price.
More foil parallel?
Sure. More foil parallel.
And this thing. Lions 9, an insert set.
Here's the back. It's part of the 2003 Lions team set issued by BBM.
Mint Tachikawa is located in Tachikawa, two blocks north of Tachikawa Station. It's about a thirty minute ride from Shinjuku by direct train, located in a mall that appears to be called "prom" on the fourth floor. Being so far away it is probably not worth traveling to unless you're already headed that way. If you do go, be sure to look for the box of random cards that seem to be cheap or discounted... if they're still there. I went there a few months ago, but I hope to make a return trip sometime in November.
Meanwhile, the better half of my find will come in my next post!
The Toshihiro Kase foil card with the blue glove was from BBM's original premium series, Diamond Heroes. Diamond Heroes ran from 1996-2001 and was foil-based every year. As far as I'm concerned, the were some very unattractive cards and I'm glad BBM abandoned it. The line ended in 2002 when BBM introduced Touch the Game.
ReplyDeleteJason: yeah, all the Diamond Heroes cards I've seen have been quite gaudy. They really do remind me of the mid-90s Fleer products.
ReplyDeleteTouch the Game was a nice set, but Genesis replaced it this year. The base cards are overly complicated with all that foil but some of the hits are awesome.