Winning An Unfair Fight: 2008 Stadium Club

I present to you: Clayton Kershaw. This card is arguably the key card in the 2008 Stadium Club set. Max Scherzer is giving him a run for his money, though.

And it's mine, now. With that purchase, I now have a full set of 2008 Stadium Club! To be honest, my set is a bit of a Frankenset.

2008 Stadium Club is a 184 card set, but cards 101-150 have photo variations, making a full set 234 cards. But Joe DiMaggio was removed, so a full set is 233 cards. #151-184 are rookie autographs, like Kershaw above. Every third card #1-150 (3, 6, 9, 12, etc) is numbered to 999 copies, as are the photo variations. Rookie autographs were only found in hobby packs. Confused, yet?

There are several parallels. For non-autographed cards, First Day Issue Hobby are numbered to 599 copies, while Retail versions aren't serial-numbered and found one per pack. There are also blue, gold, and platinum Photographer's Proof parallels for all cards #1-184, numbered to 99 or less. 

Finding all of the variations and stars in regular base form was actually much more difficult than picking up parallels here and there. I especially relied heavily on retail First Day Issue cards for the /999 base cards and photo variations. There are even a couple Photographer's Proofs in there!

I'm definitely glad to knock this set off the list! I still need to finish a few Topps throwback sets. Perhaps those are my next focus. What set has been nearly impossible for you to finish?

Until next time...

Nagoya Shops and Show (Part 3)

 Shall we get the rest of the singles out of the way? You've heard me talk a lot about cards I picked up at Mint Hinasho in Gamagori (do you know where Gamagori is? Many Japanese people don't), but not about other shops, or the show I've been teasing in the title. That's because I only got to one other shop, Mint Ponyland in Nagoya. As for the show, I'm getting there. Actually, I'm there. Most of the cards here were pickups at the show!

First, a bunch of cards for the type collection. See the best I could do with my scanner. I think I need to find a feeder sheet to help scan some of these slicker cards that don't feed through smoothly.

These are both parallels; 2020 Glory on the left is #/30, while the 2013 Giants gold signature parallel is #/100.

These 2019 1st Version cards are the /50 Rookie green and the /50 Holo Signature partial parallels.

Ugh. Crazy scanner. Here are two insert parallels from team sets. The BayStars one is really sparkly, which is why the it has that dot pattern in my scan. The Hawks insert is just a numbered parallel.

Really, BBM is lazy with their inserts. They have no meaning or substance; as you see, it's just a foil card with a player on it; the parallels simply add a different foil style or even just numbered stamping on the back. Yes, I realize Topps and Panini do this too, but BBM's inserts never seem to have much thought put into them.

Ah, I've found a relic! I needed this card for my type collection, and the price was right. But I especially love the use of the summer alternate jersey as both the picture and jersey swatch.

Ugh, scanner again. When I first came to Japan, these First Pitch cards were simply subsets in the 2nd Version set, and rarely commanded a premium. But they've gained popularity over the years (are that many people reading my blog or is it just a coincidence?) and the prices have risen and BBM has added various serial-numbered parallels. I wish this had scanned better, but you can see it's a gold foil front. And yes, the gold foil looks just about as bad in person as it does in the scan.

Here's a 2020 version of the Rookie green foil parallel for you.

And a 2020 Dancing Heroine autographed card. I don't recall offhand what 2019's autographs were like, but I believe this is the first time BBM didn't state which Dancing Heroine set this is from. There are two, called Hana and Mai, and usually the autographs have a notation somewhere telling which set it's from, but I'm blind or it's not there.

Some of the scans here are pretty bad. Sorry. But I did find three Epoch Stars and Legends base singles for my type collection. These cards came from Ponyland, and are basically all that I found at that shop (save for a few other basic singles not worth mentioning this time).

The 2020 BBM Icons set was titled Fireballer, and included both a regular insert set and a Rookie insert set. Here are both.

I'm still confused about this card. When I bought it, I thought I needed it for my type collection. Then, I thought I didn't. And now, again, I wonder if I do. Meanwhile, I remember Lloyd Moseby mostly for his time in Detroit, because I went to a Tigers game and I can distinctly remember hearing the announcer calling his name out for the lineup. Unfortunately, I don't have my ticket stub from that game so I couldn't tell you which. But I do remember a different announcer calling Dave Magadan's name; that would have been 1994, in Atlanta, when he was with the Marlins.

Two certified autographs. The Golden Eagles card on the left is from the team issue set, while the Dragons card is from the BBM team set. Akasaka's jersey number is 204. I think that's the highest jersey number yet that I've seen on a card. (Aside from the mascot jersey numbers.)

The above cards mostly came from the card show, with the exception of those Epoch Stars and Legends base cards. But it's time to go back to Gamagori for some set building:

These two 1996 cards are all I could find to help me finish my set. Dragons are tough! 18 of the 20 cards I need are from the high number Dragons set. One of the others is from the low number Dragons. And one is a short-printed subset card.

I had better luck with 1995. I might finish the '95 set before the '96... though I'm still missing some very tough cards. I think I mixed Dave's cards in when I scanned these, since I did that before entering cards into inventory. But regardless, I need two regular cards (one of which is an Ichiro puzzle piece) and eight high-number cards. Most of those are not Marines, though!

And once again, I'll call it a day. Until next time...

Apprehensive Joy of a Completed Set

Well, it looks like the quest may finally have come to an end. So I'll pay homage to 

For several years, I've been chasing down cards to finish the nearly 500-card 2000 BBM Century's Best Nine set. It started about five or six years ago with a large portion of the set, and from then it's been mostly about singles found at card shops. But to finish this sucker off, I've been relying on online sources. And last week, card 345 popped up in a small lot. And as I mentioned before, it's Yutaka Fukumoto:

It's a strange photo, mainly because of the look on his face. I'm pretty sure this is from BP or some other practice.

As I said, it was part of a small lot, and included with Fukumoto up-close was:

Fukumoto nearly kneeling at a game after probably rapping out a fly ball or line drive...

Fukumoto definitely taking batting practice while an umpire (or someone dressed as an umpire) looks on...

And Fukumoto doing what Fukumoto does best: running. I couldn't get this card to scan straight, he's just so fast!

Those other three Fukumotos are most likely extras. This weekend, I'll sort out my cards and hopefully verify that the set has been completed! And I can finally put it to bed. There are two insert sets and some parallels, but putting together a mini-master or master set seems too daunting at this point: I just want the Wally Yonamine Combination card!

Set complete: Cheery Cards to Start March

Weekly Baseball occasionally includes cards as premiums with their magazines. I'm not sure exactly how often. But in 2012 and 2014 at least, they included preview cards for the two annual BBM cheerleading Dancing Heroine sets.

As I've built up my SCM promo card collection, I have picked up some of these cards, but for the past few years I haven't made any progress. In fact, both years had four cards each, and I've had three of four cards for each year.

Last month, I finally found one of the cards I needed. Along with the three I already had from that year. Each pair of cards were included in a little envelope of sorts attached inside the magazine. One seller had both envelopes for the 2012 set. Let's have a look at this issue, shall we?

The Dancing Heroine Hana (華) promos were included in the June 18 issue. 

Card WB1: Akiko Kamishiro, Fighters Girl (Nippon-Ham Fighters).

Card WB2: Chiho Abe of Team Venus (Yomiuri Giants).

Dancing Heroine Mai (舞) promos were included in the July 30 issue.

Card WB1: Asami of the Honeys (Fukuoka Hawks).

Card WB2: Riho Sugiura of the Cheer Dragons (Chunichi Dragons).

The cards use basically the same design of the base cards. The gold background distinguishes them from base cards, as does the Weekly Baseball Promotion notation on the front and unique card numbers.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I only know of 2012 and 2014 promos. I feel like I've had 2013 and/or 2015 cards, but I could be mistaken. SCM Magazine included cheer promos in later years before it, sadly, disappeared.

Today's Trio

No, I'm not putting together a new feature. I'm just showing off three cards that I've recently added to my collection. Because I can.

Another one of those ugly printing plates, and poorly scanned. But I'm always glad to have them for my type collection! This is Trevor Cahill, from 2012 Bowman. Cahill debuted with the A's in 2009, but has played for a total of nine teams through 2020, returning to the A's for a second stint in 2018. I'm counting his time with the Dodgers, since he did play in their minor league system.

This card didn't scan very well either. I'm still learning how to use this new scanner, and apparently the sun shining through my window in the morning causes my scanner to register edges of things poorly. Atsuya Furuta is another legendary Japanese player that most MLB fans probably don't know anything about. This card is part of the Upper Deck Ovation NPB mini-master set I'm attempting to complete. Again, I'm so close!

Haraguchi probably won't be winning any Best Nine awards, but he is a two-time All Star and a cancer survivor. And this jersey card is a nice addition to my NPB type collection.