More-Recent Pickups

It's time to run through a few more scans, including a true odd-ball!

 Let's start with this 1999 Ichiro card. His Japanese cards are unbelievably valuable for 1990s cards. I do hope to get a full run of his flagship regular cards eventually. The RC will be tough!

 Now for that oddball. The Kochi Fighting Dogs are a part of the Shikoku Island League, an independent league that plays on the island of Shikoku (surprise, surprise). There are four teams, one in each prefecture found on the large island. The Fighting Dogs signed Manny Ramirez to a contract this year, and I'll be seeing them play at least once next month during my vacation! The card above is from their 2016 team set. They have a 2017 set as well, which I might pick up for myself.

 Another month, another True Heart autograph. This is Mika Shirahime. Shirahime means White Princess.

 Cue "Hangin' Tough" (yes, that's a New Kids on the Block reference) for this pair of Tuffy Rhodes singles for my Calbee 2000 set.

 Let's make it three more, huh?

 Let's finish weak, huh? This is a red-foil Printed Autograph card from the 2016 BBM Icons: Speed box set. Unfortunately, I already had cards for both this and the gold foil version seen below. So both of these were unnecessary, but I might as well show them off, huh?

We're going back to vintage again tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Vintage Beauties: More than a Handful of Bromides

I continue my hunt for vintage. I love getting these old cards, regardless of condition! I pounced on cheap lots and oddball singles a few times last month, and these are just some of the spoils.

 Toshitake Nakayama from the Dragons. I believe this is either from JBR 42 or JBR 17. JBR 42, 1956 Yamakatsu Tobacco Menko Sized, identifies Nakayama as being a left-hand pitcher at the end of his delivery. This set doesn't seem to have the "player" title after the name, as seen above (four characters in the left column instead of just two in the sample scan). JBR 17 is the 1957 Tobacco Menko Sized set, and recognizes two variations where the 8 in his jersey is partially obscured but his left hand is visible. There is no description of the writing on the front, but there may be only one column in the example scan.

 Hiroshi Oshita of the Lions. I can't figure this card out so it might be uncatalogued. It seems to match the description of his card in JBR 16, but the style isn't exactly right.

 Giants player Tetsuharu Kawakami. Like the Oshita card, I can't identify this. That said, both of them seem to match the JCM 131 menko issues in terms of front design. They don't appear to be separated menko cards, though. It's possible this is JBR 18, but the text isn't quite right.

 Another Giants. Again, a card that resembles a menko without the menko back: this looks like JCM 26.

 What happened to the borders on this card scan? Again, Giants.

 Hey, not a Giants! Instead, this is superstar Masaichi Kaneda. Don't know who he is? Check out his Wikipedia article for some details. Again, I believe this is a card from JBR 18.

 Hiroshima Carp non-batboy standing by the bat rack. Too bad there isn't more detail in the background. This should be Makoto Kozuru from the aforementioned JBR 17 set.

 Okajima of the Dragons, also from JBR 17. The corners on this card have been clipped, not exactly evenly but it is unique.

 Another Kawakami card. And again, this matches JBR 17.

 From the Dragons. I'm pretty sure this is Sadao Kondo from JBR 2a (1950 B&W Type II 3rd Prize Premiums).

 Here's another one of those tiny cards! This is from LiLi (ririi) Gum. It's small as it is, and that print next to the player's head on the right is miniscule. I have to wonder how they did it.

LiLi Gum's set came out around 1960. Each pack included one piece of gum. The front of my card depicts Shigeru Fujio of the Giants. Back text indicate that there were more cards than the 18 that were released.

And that's it for now! I find myself picking up more and more vintage cards - menko, bromides, and game cards - because they are so beautiful and identifying them is an adventure of its own!

The Sets-Up

Working on US sets from Japan has its difficulties. Namely, I'm stuck using only eBay, COMC, and SportLots. And I guess the Beckett Marketplace. I can't browse card shops or attend shows. That said, with a few exceptions, I could finish off pretty much my entire want list - assuming cost wasn't a concern.

In Japan, though, modern cards can sometimes be difficult (I think some collectors hoard certain players) and vintage is a real pain.

I'm still a few cards short of my 1975 Calbee Giants Spring Training subset, for example. And I can't find that one BBM 1993 hologram. And there are two cards, which I believe are commons, that I still need for my 2001 BBM set. I'll have to check on that tonight when I get home.

I have made some progress on several sets, though, which you'll see here.

 This card is from 1974 Calbee, the same series that has the 1975 Spring Training cards (Calbee was complicated back then, just check my archives for those posts). I saw this on Sean's blog and decided it had to be added to my collection! That's a beautiful shot - Shigeo Nagashima in the foreground watching Sadaharu Oh at the plate. A beautiful day for a day game, the stands are full. And you can see the stadium and its advertisements well, including a little bit of the neighborhood behind it. Topps: this is why you don't have to crop your card images so tight. The image itself has even more significance, but for that, see Sean's post.

One more card from that '75 Spring Training set came up in auction, so now I'm one more step closer to the full subset!

 I'm collecting the 2000 Calbee set thanks to a generous gift from a student last year. It wasn't until a few months ago that I really started building it, but at this point I need the full Series 2 set and many of the "premium" inserts.

 A couple years ago, I added the master Upper Deck lists to my want list. They released four sets (2000 Ovation and Victory, and 2001 Upper Deck and Victory). I'm down to just inserts, and these Home Run Explosion cards knock me down to just two for that insert set. 

  And these Rookie Roundups leave two more in that set. Both of these sets are from the 2001 Upper Deck issue.

 I ended up with a bunch of singles from the 2000 Broccoli Lions set, which included a full base set and many of the inserts. So of course, I've got to finish that set off!

 These are from the "Rare" insert set, and I'm down to two. I also need a bunch of the Dice-K insert cards. This should be a set I finish by the end of the year.

 Speaking of finished, I also got a ton (seriously, a ton - like thousands) of 2000 BBM Preview singles. I was expecting cards from the regular set, not Preview - I guess I should have looked at the pictures a little more closely. Anyway, I was missing one card from the set, which I have now. Kiyohara isn't it; I accidentally wrote down the wrong card number. But I do have that mysterious final card and the Preview set is complete.

 Finally, a massive 300-card set is nearing completion. The 2000 Sydney Olympic Games Japanese Team Cards set, issued by MRM and Upper Deck, is down to eight cards.

 I found these 10 cards at a shop I frequently visit, but never thought to check for this set. I noticed the box of singles and cut my want list by half!

 I still need many of the soccer players; soccer and baseball players in this set are the most valuable and most wanted in general because those two sports are also the most popular in Japan.

With the Olympics coming to Japan in 2020, I really hope BBM, Epoch, and/or other companies issue a set like this again. BBM issues a gymnastics set every year and has issued sets for other sports (badminton, curling), but a comprehensive set of the full Olympic team would be amazing! Even something similar to Topps' US Olympic set would be better than nothing.