2016 Calbee: Inching Closer with Ohtani

As hot as Ohtani is in the US now, his regular cards haven't really gone up in price here. That may be because he's already the most expensive card in the set, or because card shops are just too busy or lazy to search through all of their boxes just to make a few extra yen on a few cards. That's a good thing, because I needed one of his cards for my 2016 Calbee set.

This is the only Calbee set I'm building from the time I moved to Japan. There are plenty of older Calbee sets, but I've managed to get all of the Calbees except 2013 and 2016 - 2013 is not something I'm working on right now. Series 1 never got finished because that came out as I was preparing to move to start a new teaching position (same company, but kind of a promotion of sorts). And I just bought the Series 2 and Series 3 sets, but the Series 2 set came without any of the insert sets (rare or non-rare). 

I've neglected the set for a while, but in the past couple of months I've been scouring boxes for those silly subsets. Here are my latest grabs:

 I really like a lot of Calbee's checklists, and there are some good photos here. But others aren't much different from the base set.

 But they do highlight specific events early in the 2016 season!

 One more checklist, and that Ohtani I mentioned. I'm sure one of the Star Cards I'm missing is an Ohtani, and I wouldn't be surprised if one of the checklists features him too.

Speaking of Star Cards, here are the two I got most recently.

Where does that leave me? Three Star Cards, three Legends, one Exciting Scene, and two Checklists. I might even be able to finish that set this weekend. We'll see, right?

Until next time...

KBO: 2016-17 SMG Ntreev Super Star Baseball Cards Black

The 2016-17 SMG Ntreev Superstar Black Edition would end up being Ntreev's last KBO product. Released at the end of the year, this third Christmastime set marked the company's end of their licensing agreement with KBO, and thus the end of KBO cards for at least a year. (There were some team sets in 2017.) There is talk of a new set coming out in 2018, so hopefully there will be more to write about soon.

In fact, SMG didn't really release a regular set in 2016, as they had in 2014 and 2015. In those years, they had a flagship set of sorts separated into series which they called Seasons, as well as releasing additional sets.

In 2016, there were no "Season" sets, instead going with two "Baseball's Best Players" sets primarily geared toward trading card gamers. These were numbered following the first version, with PA02 and PA03 prefixes identifying the series. Other than the card numbering, they are basically the same as the first series.

The set has a tiny normal checklist and a ton of special cards, so let's break it down.

 The first part of the set (#1-18) are again Superstar (SS) cards. These have a horizontal format, like the prior year, and serial numbering, also like the 2015-16 set. These also again feature record breakers, as well as a KBO card and a few team cards. Serial numbering varies from 50 to 185, with a majority of cards #/185.

 Next are the All-Star (AS) cards, #19-63. These have foil backgrounds and feature league leaders in a variety of categories.

 Just like last year, there are two parallels. This is the Square parallel, with a holographic-ish background. There are also Wave parallels, similar to last year, with the wavy glass block tile background.

 This is a Normal card (#64-113) - only 50 of these are in the set. There is a gold parallel for this subset, as before.

 And here is a Gold Normal parallel. As you can see, the color of the inside border changes, and that appears to be all.

If you're going after a regular set with all the short prints, you can stop here - the remainder of the checklist are hits:

Cards 114-133 are single-swatch relic cards, with an SP suffix. There should be two cards per team. And continuing on, #134-143 are SD-suffix dual-swatch relic cards. These feature two players from the same team. All of the single and dual swatch relic cards appear to be numbered to 40.

The bulk of the remainder of the set (144-357) is comprised of autographed cards. That means there many more autographed cards (214) than regular cards (113, including short prints). Autographs appear to be all numbered to 10 copies each.

If you're going for a full master set, the last 14 cards (#358-371, with SC prefix) are gold foil signature cards. These appear to focus on awards. The one example I saw is for a Gold Glove winner, numbered out of 10, making it as rare as a regular autographed card.

I have to wonder if SMG had more stock somewhere of autographs or memorabilia from unreleased sets, and what they did with it, or plan to do with it. I'm not a big fan of the numbering format of this set, though I suppose it does make some sense to just number the entire release sequentially instead of individually by subset.

For completists, it does bring a bit of a conundrum - do you get just the Normal cards? Add in the All-Stars? Go after the Superstars? Do you try to chase down 228 cards of which there are less than a dozen copies each?

It's a shame that SMG isn't making baseball cards any more, but those past three years were a great part of Korean baseball card collecting history (if there is such a thing)!

KBO Cards: 2015-16 SMG Ntreev Samsung Lions Collection

Okay, now I'm using the SMG tag. They do have the lead part of the copyright line, so I guess I should...

As you may have guessed, this set features only Samsung Lions players. There is also a set featuring only Doosan Bears players, but that's a post for another day.

There are 44 cards in this set, and at first glance it looks like you get 40 different players (no repeats). There are a few short prints here, but a majority of the set are normal cards.

The set has a 2015 copyright line, but the card numbering (SBC16SA- prefixes) indicates a 2016 set.

 Cards 1 and 2 are SS (Superstar) cards, with gold foil backgrounds and facsimile signatures.

 Cards 3-5 are BS (Big Star) cards, all of which having the wavy glass block background.

 #6-8 are AS (All Stars), with team logo backgrounds.

Finally, #9-44 are N (Normal) cards. Player cards end at #40, with #41-44 being team cards (logo, mascot, stadium, and a team photo).

There are three rare subsets:

• Super Piece: #45-49, memorabilia (I believe)
• Super Auto: #50-55, autographed (I believe)
• Super Stick: #56-65, clear cards

These rare cards probably shouldn't be considered part of the regular set, just like the autographs, memorabilia, and other limited "subsets" found in Ntreev/SMG's other sets.

2016 AIAIO JWBL (Japan Women's Baseball League) Special Sets

This is not comprehensive. I picked up a few singles off YJA a couple weeks ago. I'm still trying to find singles from the 2010 and 2011 BBM sets, but occasional cards from AIAIO can be found there too.

AIAIO creates custom cards for little sports stars, or anyone else who wants their own trading cards. They have a relationship with JWBL where they make cards for all of the players. Players then trade their cards with fans who get their own custom AIAIO cards made. Sometimes AIAIO sells or gives away singles or sets. I bought a full set in 2015, but haven't found a full set for other years. 

The first set is titled "All Star 2016" and includes a big logo in the corner.

 Chie Niihara is a manager, so her stats on the back are non-existent. Given her card number, I'd guess that the set size is 50 cards.

 Here is a player including her 2015 and career stats.

 Shiho Murata is the third player I picked up from this set. The diagram in the bottom corner identifies her position on the field.

The other special set is from a "Special Collaboration Match" of some sort.

 The cards pair Dione and Flora players. I only have three cards from this set and they aren't numbered.

 I'm not sure if all three cards I have equal a full set, or if there are more. Additionally, if there are more, do they only feature pitchers?

The mascots get the last card. The mascots have birthdays. And favorite foods. I didn't know that before.

I don't expect to ever have a full set of AIAIO cards other than the 2015 season. I'm not sure if I'd ever know if I had a full set, because I don't know of a catalog for them, either. But as I find them, I'll certainly keep adding them to my collection!

2016 Calbee Samurai Japan

Last year, Calbee surprised collectors with a couple topical sets which book-ended the company's usual three-series annual release. Early in the year, they dropped an "All-Star" set featuring some of the game's current greats (though not really related to the NPB All-Star Game). And after the season ended, this set came out.

The Samurai Japan set features the national team, with some caveats. The manager (Hiroki Kokubo) and 35 players are featured, putting the set size at 36. All of the participants in the Premier 12 or games against Taiwan last spring are featured except Kenta Maeda, who was probably excluded due to his now playing in the MLB and not having a card contract with Calbee (for whatever reason). And my guess is that this set is a pretty good representation of Samurai Japan for March.

Here are all of the cards:

Some of the biggest names in the NPB are included, including Ohtani, Tsutsugoh, and Sakamoto (many of my Yomiuri Giant fan students like him).

As NPB Card Guy mentioned in his post, these cards use the same kira (sparkle) finish found on the Starcard inserts. For those of you who have never seen BBM or Calbee do this finish, it's very similar to Bowman's cracked ice parallels. I believe it's that nearly-invisible holographic foil finish that ends up causing the ugly snow effect when these cards are scanned.

Additionally, a gold foil parallel was randomly inserted in packs. The "signature" might be provided by the player, but it is in calligraphy form, not the usual signature format that a player might use. And given that fact, and the lack of stylization, either the players write their names with calligraphy brushes, or (more likely) it's just a font or work done by a calligrapher. I have one (not necessarily this one) in my type collection. The above image shows you the back of the cards, too.

I'm with NPB Card Guy: I don't like this design, or more specifically, that Calbee has basically copied their Starcards design for both the All-Stars set early last year and this set, issued in November. But I am happy to see a Samurai Japan set issued in Japan, as most (nearly all) of the Japan National Team cards since the WBC started have been issued by Topps or Upper Deck.

Perhaps Calbee or BBM will issue another set in March that correlates with the 2017 WBC. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll be attending any of the first round games. The schedule is during the week and during my class hours; getting a day off (March 8's double header would be perfect) is not very possible.