Review: 2015 BBM Carp Legends

BBM has been issuing team sets under the "Legends" name since 2013. Hiroshima is the most recent team to receive the treatment.

 The base set has 81 cards; #1-72 are "Legends" with a red background. These players were members of championship teams. The design itself is the same as the other Legends series sets, with a cloudy background. Career stats and the usual details are on the back. Photography is generally pretty good.

All-Time Legends rounds out the set (#73-81). Players in this subset were not a part of championship teams, but still stand out as great players on the team. Current ace pitcher Kenta Maeda is a part of this subset.

 There's a gold signature partial parallel numbered to 60 copies.

The lone insert is a nine card set titled "80's Best Nine" featuring nine of the best players on the Carp in the 1980s. I guess that goes without saying. There is a parallel of this insert with red foil over the "80's Best Nine" text serial-numbered to 60 copies.

There are 49 subjects in the autograph set, most of whom have 100 (or nearly that many) cards in the set. A few players have less. Additionally there are three dual-autograph cards, each with 10 copies.

The Legends series is nice in its simplicity, and the player selection focuses on certain eras usually during dynasties. This has the opportunity to provide a bit of a different player selection from the usual anniversary sets. There are still plenty of retired players which have no modern cardboard and are in the record books for winning awards or other accomplishments. But like most of BBM's team sets, there isn't really anything special here for collectors who aren't fans of the respective teams.

I like the red and green colors used in the base set; other sets have used more muted tones in blues or grays. I've missed posting about at least one set - the Giants - from this series.

You can see more scans and read a bit more about the set at Japanese Baseball Cards, which NPB Card Guy wrote about a couple months ago... somehow this set slipped through the cracks.