This Set is Cool: 2015 BBM Cheer Dragons SP Inserts

Japanese baseball has cheerleaders. Think of that what you will - really, other than eye candy, they don't have much of a purpose. There are actual cheer leaders who orchestrate the chanting you hear at a Japanese baseball game. But the annual cheerleading card sets (Dancing Heroine Mai, Dancing Heroine Hana, and a team box set) sell very well.

The 2015 box set featured the Cheer Dragons, the cheerleading team for the Chunichi Dragons, who play in Nagoya. The release had autographs and cheki (polaroid) autographs, along with "Life Photographs" of the cheerleaders. Of course, there are regular base cards, and a set of eight inserts were also made.

Those inserts came one per box, and feature foil facsimile signatures of two cheerleaders over photos of them in a standing pose. The backs feature two more photos, this time with seated poses.

I probably would have never even thought of building this set if I hadn't come across several of the cards for only 100 yen each at a card show. With only eight cards in the set, it didn't take too much effort to finish it. And since I collect cheerleader cards, it fits right into my collection, but it also serves as my first completed box set-insert set.

All eight cards, front and back, are shown below. The cards look better in person, since the foil doesn't scan well. 

KBO Cards: 2015-16 SMG Ntreev Super Star Gold Edition

Carrying a 2015 copyright, the Gold Edition set was issued around the New Years holidays and follows some of the same basic stylings of SMG's other releases. Overall, the regular set has 113 cards in it, with only 50 of those being regular "Normal" cards and the remainder being short-prints. There are some parallels and then the card below, which hints at an actual insert set.

There are 20 packs per box, with four cards per pack. It looks like you get one normal card, one normal parallel (Gold Normal), one All-Star, and one All-Star parallel per pack. Essentially, you'll get two cards toward a base set and two cards toward parallel sets. At that rate, it'll take about three boxes to build a set of All-Star and Normals - assuming perfect collation (50 packs for the normal cards, 45 for All-Stars). The serial-numbered Superstar cards fall one per box - that's 18 boxes with perfect luck or trading.

This first card perlexes me a bit. It's not listed in the Trading Card Database, and it has no card number. It's a relic card #14/30. Lim appears in the normal checklist, so this comes from an insert set for the Gold Edition that's uncataloged. Dan sent me this great card, but I really can't tell what it is! Hits don't fall one per box, that's for sure. But watching Dan's box breaks on YouTube, this card came out of a Gold Edition pack.

The checklist for Gold Edition starts with SS (Super Star) cards - #1-18 feature horizontal designs and serial-numbering. The first few cards are #/60, then #/200, with the final cards in the series #/500. (This may not be exactly correct, but based on what I can tell, it should be.) Card #1 is for the KBO league itself and includes statistics on attendance on the back. Cards 2 and 3 are team cards (Lions and Bears), with the remainder featuring individual players (this subset could be titled Record Holders). Again, one SS card comes per box.

 The other short prints in the set are AS (All-Star) cards. These are #19-63, and have a nice shiny design. Each pack has one AS card.

 There are two parallels for the All-Star subset. This is the Waves parallel, and as you can tell from the background, it looks like you're in a glass-block room after having a little too much to drink. The Wave parallels seem to fall about one per pack.

 The other All-Star parallel is Sparkle, which is pretty self-explanatory. These appear to be box hits, just like the SS subset.

Cards #64-113 are "Normal" cards, but unfortunately I don't have a scan of one now, so I had to borrow these from NPB Card Guy (sorry!). You can see more at NPB Card Guy's post on the SMG Blue, Gold, and Black Editions. Only one Normal card is in each pack. I have one small problem with this design - that border around the photo could have either been non-existent or translucent.

The Normal cards have a "Gold" parallel, with gold foil for the team name, player name, and the border that surrounds the player. These aren't any more limited than the regular Normal cards, as they also come one per pack.

So with good collation, you'll finish both the regular and parallel sets for All-Star and Normal cards in three boxes - but given SMG's previous collation I doubt you'll be so lucky. Furthermore, you'll need to get the other 15 Superstar cards, and any hits, for a full master set.

2015 Ntreev KBO Baseball's Best: Hell's Fireball

Ntreev went back to gaming-style cards with this release, and simplified the checklist at the same time by removing short prints. For that, I'm very happy! This serves as a standalone set, and isn't part of the Superstar series they released that year.

 Every card in this set has a PA01 prefix. There are 100 cards in the set, 10 per team. However, instead of all 100 cards being numbered sequentially, they are numbered by team. So the Doosan Bears are DO001-DO010, and so on. All of the card backs are identical, and the fronts have ATK and DEF scores for use in a card game.

 While the base set is pretty simple, there are a few parallels. All card #3s have a sparkle foil parallel, which is the most common parallel.

 All card #2s have a gold sparkle foil parallel, serving as a second tier of parallels.

 All card #1s have a foil signature parallel, which is the third tier.

Finally, card #1s also have a clear parallel, which are the rarest parallels in the set.

Since there are only 10 cards per parallel, a master set comes in at only 140 cards - very achievable with only 40 short printed parallels. Unfortunately, these cards have no real statistics on them.

Dan sent all the cards you see in this post, including several other parallels and base cards scanned below.

If I ever come across a $10 box of this stuff, it'll probably be worth it just for the fun of opening the packs and finding some parallels!

2015 Ntreev KBO Super Star Season 1 and Season 2

The 2015 KBO set came out in two regular series, titled Super Star Season 1 and Super Star Season 2.  The set is produced by Ntreev Soft and Duael Entertainment, but I'm just calling it Ntreev.

There are similarities between the 2015 sets and the 2014 sets, though there are far fewer base cards to balance out all of the short prints.

Right now, I only have two samples below, both which came from Dan. I already have several other cards filed away somewhere, but I'm not at home to scan them. Furthermore, I'm missing the truly important ones - autographs, relics, and medallions.

 Here's a base card, with an N suffix. NPB Card Guy posted this card when doing his summary of the set, but I think he missed something: the team name is misspelled "Herose" instead of "Heroes".

And here's a BS (Big Star) short print.

Season 1 breaks down as follows:

• #1-10 SGC (gold coin) (serial-numbered 1/1)
• #11-30 SP (jerseys) (serial-numbered /40)
• #31-40 SS (Super Star) (foil signature)
• #41-60 BS (Big Star)
• #61-110 AS (All Star)
• #111-140 N (Normal)
• #141-160 RN (Rookies)
• #161-230 SA (autographs) (serial numbered /10)

The All Star set has a sparkle parallel, apparently with various serial-numbering, either /100 or /350. The copy I have (#86) is #/100.

Each Season 1 pack has five cards: 4 Normal cards and 1 short print. With absolutely perfect luck, it would take you at least 230 packs to finish the set (130 if you knock out the serial-numbered cards). Of course, with only 30 regular cards in the set, you should get a full set in a box. See NPB Card Guy's results here.

Season 2 breaks down as follows:

• #1-20 SP (memorabilia) (serial-numbered)
  Apparently, there are patch cards; I couldn't find any information about any type of parallel but it's possible they are parallel versions of the regular cards.
• #21-30 SS (Super Star) (foil signature)
• #31-50 BS (Big Star)
• #51-80 AS (All Star)
• #81-130 N (Normal)
• #131-200 SA (autographed) (serial numbered /10)
• #201 AS (All Star - Seung Yeop Lee #/400)

There's one insert set - a Sticker set of 100 cards which fall one per pack. And the All Star set is again paralleled; these appear to be all #/430. 

The Season 2 packs also have four Normal cards and one short print, plus one sticker. Again, it would take a ton of packs - even with perfect luck -  to finish the set: 201 for a master set and 111 if you drop the autographs and memorabilia. That would also give you a full sticker set. Of course, perfect collation is essentially impossible. There are 50 regular base cards in Season 2, which means it would take more packs, but again you should have a full normal set in a box. But that doesn't always happen, as NPB Card Guy found out.

KBO cards are a neat novelty, but unfortunately the crazy short print/base card arrangement and lack of depth overall is a big turnoff for what amounts to a flagship set. (See also: Panini Donruss.) Ntreev's sets don't have foreign players in them, which leaves out a big part of the team.

That said, the cards are fun to get and there are some interesting things Ntreev has done so far.

More posts coming soon!

2015 in Review: My Goals

It's the end of the year, and that means it's time to reflect on the good and the bad. I will probably be simultaneously posting my personal reflection on the year on my Japan blog. So here is baseball.

The card collecting goals for 2015, with my accomplishments:

1. Get six flagship sets that I need. I went above and beyond this goal. I've nearly finished the Upper Deck set run, I got a couple Topps flagship sets marked off the list, and I found a few well-priced auctions in the spring that made this goal easier than I expected.
2. Locate the eight cards I need to finish the card portion of player collections for six players. I added several players to my player collection, but I managed to finish all of the regular ones except for Buster Posey's Topps RC. Or maybe I got that too but didn't mark it off. I have to check my purchase orders...
3. Find at least five of the ten figurines I need for my player collections. I need 16 figures now thanks to additions to the list; I count only one figure purchase this year.
4. Get down to 400 needed cards for my Awards collection. Done. I haven't updated the 2015 winners yet, but I currently sit at 379. And that's with three new collections on the want list. This goal was partially met by creating custom cards. I haven't printed any out, but I made cards for players with no cards or unattainable cards. That's 187 custom cards made over the course of a few days.
5. Keep my MLB Type Collection over 25%. I started at 25.5% at the beginning of the year. There are still a few sets to add to my database, but those are super-new issues. I'm at 25.51% now though! I'm surprised I was able to maintain the collection, especially given the low number of 2015 cards I have and the addition of some other formerly-forgotten sets to the list.
6. Reduce my wanted sets list to 175. The year started with 229 sets on the list. I'm at 174 now. I barely made that cut. I pushed hard around Black Friday to knock down or knock off several sets using COMC and Sportlots.
7. Reach 60% of Japanese cards by the end of the year. From 54%, I've increased to over 63%. I need to rework the 2014 and 2015 lists to include several missing autograph, memorabilia, and parallel sets, though. I need to do a lot of research to make that happen, so I'm going to try to be more proactive about it with 2016 sets.
8. Reach 50% of sets in the Japanese type collection other than BBM and Calbee. 52.5%, so done. There were several releases this year that helped, along with some modern card singles that I've found at card shows and shops. I really want to work on the vintage side, but I didn't go to any flea markets this year.
9. Create and hopefully complete a collection for players who went from the NPB to the MLB. I created the collection, and I have most of the MLB cards for that collection. I just haven't taken the time to search for NPB cards, so that side sits at about 25% complete.

Not bad, only one missed collecting goal with another partially completed. I put forth a lot of effort with organization. My want/inventory lists have almost all been reworked and last weekend I reorganized all my loose cards here in Japan.

And while I didn't blog about it much and it wasn't in my collecting goals, I added Buck Farmer and Charlie Hough supercollections to my list. Closely following Buck's auctions on eBay has put me at 84.81% of his known cards (some 1/1s and /5s missing due to price or unavailability), and as for Hough, I'm at 64.57%. The missing cards there are mostly old team issues or recent autographs.

As a whole, I'm happy with my collection's progress this year.

And my blogging goals for 2015:

1. Finally finish those Calbee Through the Years posts.
2. I want to publish my Japanese set database.
3. Continue posting new release details on all of the 2015 baseball sets.
4. Fully update my Japanese card shop posts and publish a map and list.
5. Make weekly "Idol of the Week" posts.

I didn't meet a single blogging goal this year. Some stuff I worked on a bit, but as a whole I'm disappointed in my blogging performance this year. Hopefully I'll have more motivation in 2016.

More JWBL Souvenirs, in 3D

A couple months ago, I picked up a bunch of souvenirs through Yahoo Auctions, including some things from the women's professional baseball league (JWBL).

 First, this signed ball from the second Japan Cup. It's the "World Series" of Japanese women's baseball, and includes teams from outside the JWBL too.

 There are two signatures on the ball, though I don't know whose they are.

 Next, a game ball from the JWBL itself. This one is unsigned; I got it at a game I attended earlier this year.

 Next, a signed board featuring most, if not all, of the members of one of the teams. I haven't tried figuring them out yet, though with the jersey numbers, once I find the team I'll be fine. I believe it's the Flora, because I got it with the item below:

 This is a standard hand fan. They're given out all summer as advertisements; I've even seen condos advertised on fans.

This one features several members of the Kyoto Flora team; the back highlights some of the summer series from 2015.

I'm pretty happy now with my collection of JWBL items, though I would like a GPBL ball (yes, they exist) and all those cards I don't have yet from 2010-2014.