Go Big or Go Home

Calbee has been including prize redemption cards since their first baseball set back in 1973. Originally called homerun cards, and now called lucky cards, these could be exchanged for various gifts. They've offered card albums, baseballs, towels, books, and, yes, even cards.

From 1990-1993, you could get your hands on an oversized card set. There were two unique series in 1990, but only one type for the remaining years.

1992 is definitely the rarest of the issues, and I'm not sure I've ever seen one in a shop. I finally bit the bullet and bought this Tatsunori Hara:

The design copies the base card from that year, but the set is much larger than the regular version.

I ended up with two Haras for the price of one. This is from the 1993 Big set. Again, it uses the same design as the regular 1993 cards, just in a larger size.

While we're at it, here are the other sets at a glance:

Here's the first version of 1990 Big Size cards. The front design is different from the regular set, but the backs are similar to base cards.

The second series was printed on photographic paper and has no Calbee markings, though they have the facsimile signature on the front. These might be better off labeled as bromides or raw photos rather than Big Cards.

Here's 1991. It, like 1992 and 1993, uses the same design as the base set.

I'm happy to have this run of inserts completed and crossed off my list! I guess my next whale will be a 1989 Hologram card. That might prove to be impossible, but we shall see. Until next time...

I'm Still Learning

You can't collect everything. It's impossible. With the existence of 1/1 cards, that should be pretty obvious, but even ignoring those parallels, there are about 45,000 different MLB sets out there. Add in around 7500 minor league team sets and over 10,000 Japanese sets. Oh, that's my type collection goal. Over 60,000 cards. I am approaching 20,000 cards, but the other 40k aren't going to be easy.

The same can be said for knowing all the sets. It's possible to be familiar with major releases, or be an expert on vintage gum cards, but stuff will always slip through the cracks. In Japan, a lack of documentation makes it even harder to know details about sets released even a few years ago.

Sometimes the information is out there, but I've forgotten, misremembered, or misinterpreted it. And I'm not talking about translation and language barriers. The above card of Koji Akiyama is an insert card found in the 1995 BBM All-Stars set. I had it labeled as "All Stars Inserts" in my list, but I never properly attached it to the box set, instead believing it came from regular packs. Since I never came across one in the wild, I recently reviewed Engel's last guide containing modern cards, and realized that the inserts were, in fact, found in the box set. Knowing that, I could quickly hunt one down, and now I have a full 1995 All-Stars set to go with it!

The Seibu Lions celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2003 (25 years of being the Seibu Lions, not the overall franchise anniversary). BBM reprinted cards from their 1991-2003 sets, adding a special logo on the front, and a second copyright line, second card number, and special stamp on the back. 

There are actually two different sets of this type. The above card, with the number L2, comes from a 25-card "limited" set. A second series, with LP card number prefixes, uses the same design, but only has 10 cards, and seems to be less rare.

Both sets are mentioned on the backs of the promo cards below. These three cards reproduce the covers of past Weekly Baseball magazines, with the backs advertising a special event for the release of a "mook" for the Lions anniversary. The event took place at Seibu Dome and one Seibu department store location. With the purchase of the book, you could receive an LP promo set, and it appears that the 25-card set could also be purchased for an additional 1500 yen. The 25-card set was limited to 1000 copies; that's not a big number, but I'm surprised I haven't seen more of them around.

Here are the three promo cards, front and back:

Finally, this card is a promo for the Chiba Lotte Marines issued in 2004. It's numbered MP9.

If you're interested in the details, check out NPB Card Guy's post about this set. Basically, it was sold with a particular snack at a small chain of convenience stores in a small part of Japan. Despite discovering this set in 2019, I didn't actually get my own card from the set until a couple weeks ago. 

How many other uncatalogued cards and sets are floating around out there? I'm still learning, but I'll never know. 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...