Chaos and Kanji is the blog where I write about my adventures through Japan!

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Saturday, January 9, 2016

Thank You, *Prowling Cat*, for the Oddballs!

Living in Japan as a baseball card collector has its perks. I can sometimes get some great deals on cards here at the occasional shows, and shipping through Yahoo! Auctions is much lower than eBay (as low as 62 yen - that's about 50 cents). Not to mention unparalleled access to Japanese cards and souvenirs.

On the flip side, getting specific American cards is tricky, card shows aren't as common in Tokyo as in San Francisco, and the selection of US cards is really limited, so most of my MLB cards come from eBay, Just Commons, COMC, and SportLots. And all of those cards get shipped to my mom's house, so other than quick iPhone pictures, I don't really get to see or "play" with them. I can only imagine the sorting job it's going to take to reorganize my collection that's currently spread out among four locations.

My mom tends to include shots of addresses or invoices so I can identify the sources of cards, but that doesn't always happen. Usually, I can link cards to purchases on the various websites or trade emails, but sometimes that isn't possible.

Case in point: I received a package in the US at some point last year, and these are the pictures that came:
I see a nice minor league single and a team issued oddball there, and a couple Sportsflics cards. That's Schilling on the right (with the Orioles!) but on the left, that's a Tigers player that I can't identify. Jack Morris? No clue.
That Mariners card looks like a Mothers Cookies card, and there are a couple 2008 Fort Worth Cats minor league singles. Plus Alex Gordon from one of the random Elite sets.
More minor leagues - 2004 Salem-Keizer Volcanoes and a High Desert Mavericks from an early-90s team set. The two bottom cards I can already identify as being from the Senior Leagues.
Four more minor league singles round out the lot. The Nunez and Ocasio cards are autographed (!), while the two Salem-Keizer Volcanoes cards here are not. But that's okay.

I know most if not all of them are needed for my type collection, though I think it's going to have to wait until I do finally consolidate my collections and do a full inventory. When will that be? 

And more importantly, my mom didn't give me any hint as to who these cards came from. I have an idea but I don't remember anyone saying anything was headed my way.

Anyway, claim your care package, please, whoever you are! They're great oddballs that I'm glad to add to my collection at some point!

Thanks, Prowling Cat for the fun cards! I thought they might have been from you but I'm not sure if I sent my side of the package yet either. I'll get on that for my trip to the US!

4 comments:

  1. Never seen that Rockies team issue before - of course I don't live anywhere near Colorado either. I wish more American teams would do such card sets (specifically the Cubs). It seems that the teams over in Japan are all over that idea, huh?

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  2. It was me the Prowling Cat that sent them your direction. I believe we had exchanged e-mails on a couple fof the cards, and the remaining I threw in hoping you needed them.

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  3. Tony: Just like most oddballs, team issue cards were much more prevalent in the 1990s, though some teams still have annual programs - the Brewers apparently continue to issue Police sets to this day. And other teams have here-and-there card sets - the Orioles and Nationals inserted cards into their programs in the recent past too. Japanese teams all seem to have some kind of card set each year, though some are exclusively for the fan clubs and others are stadium giveaways. The player-specific non-card souvenirs are the best, though.

    Prowling Cat: thank you! I still have your email, but I didn't realize you had sent anything to me! I believe all your stuff is still on the "trades-in-progress" shelf. I'm visiting the US in a few weeks so I'll be making a bunch of shipments then - yours included. I've updated the post!

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    1. I've been real slow in getting things done the last three months . I think we had exchanged e-mails for quite some time so no surprise that me finally sending them would throw you off :)

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