I found a few of these sets in Mint Sapporo's display case, discounted to 300 yen each. I grabbed one for myself.
Originally retailing for 1200 yen (about $12), this 18-card set was originally intended to be distributed at Kamagaya Stadium on March 16th, though the earthquake canceled the game. Sets were then made available to the public. Only 3000 sets were apparently issued but the set doesn't contain any big hits to chase after.* It was issued in a small blue-background box, with the Future Icon logo and "Kamagaya Stadium Edition" printed near the bottom. All the players are Fighters, and given the name of the set, they must be rookies or younger players.
Note that there are several front designs. The first copies the 2011 BBM Rookie Edition design.
The backs of cards 1-9 form a puzzle which you can see on
NPB Card Guy's post. Cards 10-16 have biographical data; a blue background and a player headshot replace the puzzle image. 17 has a blackish background, sepia photo from the front, and biographical info. Card 18 is a checklist with the same blue background as 10-16.
Cards 7-10 use the design from the Platinum Age - Born in 1988 set.
Two of the cards have black facsimile autographs on them, and are labeled as Printed Autographed Card. I'm not sure if all sets are exactly the same as this, or if different cards had autographs in different sets. That would certainly add to the chase! However, the limited English posts I've found don't show any other signed cards.*
The next six cards use the 2011 BBM 1st Version design. Again, the backs carry the same design throughout the set.
Card 17, with Yuki Saitoh, is labeled as an Original design card. And this is the only card in the set which identifies it as a "Kamagaya stadium edition". The back of this card is similar to the others, but with a darker background.
Card 18 features Cubby the Bear, with the back serving mainly as a checklist.
*While there are no chase cards advertised on the box or visible after a cursory search on the web, it seems that Cubby has some autographs in the set (possibly facsimile), and NPB Card Guy reports that there are possible autographs of Saitoh. It might be one special card with autographs of Saitoh and Cubby; the translation is sketchy.
NPB Card Guy confirms that no other sets were issued (see the comment below) but I wonder if similar sets were planned at some point. And I would like to see an image of the autographed Saitoh/Cubby card(s).
I did a post about this set a few years back. As far as I've been able to tell about it, it was a special set BBM did simply to cash in some more on Yuki Saitoh.
ReplyDeleteJamabalaya has all the cards on their website as well.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your questions in the last paragraph - to the best of my knowledge there were no other versions issued, there are no other similar sets for other teams and there are autographed parallels for cards #17 and #18. I don't know if they are real or facsimile autographs.