Two Vintage, Not Too Vintage

I've recently come across a couple cards I need for my type collection. That's not so strange - there are hundreds of singles in any shop's showcase I need, though they're usually priced higher than I'd like to pay. And tons on Yahoo Auctions, but I'm not scouring through thousands of listings at this point.

But something pops up in a random search, or some card catches my eye, and I end up with a card that's eluded me for the past eight years.

 You might have seen this image on this blog before. This is from Calbee's first set, and it's quite the iconic image. Tigers players Yutaka Enatsu and Tabuchi in a studio shot, with that great 1970s Kodachrome color. I'm assuming it's Kodachrome... is there anything else? Fuji Film, since this is Japan?

Enatsu is one of the greatest pitchers of all time. In 1968, he struck out 401 batters. Even Nolan Ryan couldn't reach that... and the only players who had more than him pitched in the 19th century. He retired with more than 200 wins and nearly 3000 strikeouts over a 17-year career. That's pretty impressive when you realize that for about half of his career, he was a relief pitcher, racking up 193 saves.

Koichi Tabuchi was a home-run hitting catcher for the Tigers, with 474 over his career; in 1973 he hit four consecutive home runs. He was also pretty good behind the plate, with one of the highest caught-stealing rates; he lead the league in this category twice.

This isn't the regular Calbee card, though. That card is pretty valuable and popular, but this is the blank-backed, postcard-sized "large premium" which is much rarer. Unfortunately, this particular card is fairly damaged; you can see some dirt and rough top-right corner. I don't care! I don't remember the last time I actually saw a card from this set, if ever. And I got it for a price far lower than I expected to pay. If this card were in mint condition, it would be worth $700. I didn't pay that. And I'm happy!

Hiromu Matsuoka pitched for the Swallows for nearly 20 years, compiling a nearly-even 191-190 record with a 3.33 ERA, and just barely reaching the 2000-strikeout milestone (he retired with 2008 K's). This card is from the 1976 Yamakatsu Blank Back Green Box set; it's about 7x10 (not a typo), making this quite large. It's too narrow to fit in a US 8x10 photo frame, though the image is too large for a 5x7-centered matte... such is life. I'm not framing it anyway, though as a kid I bet I would have.

Yamakatsu issued a bunch of these oversized cards, but identifying them is difficult. I was glad to find that I really did need an example from this particular set, and even happier to pick it up for just a couple dollars. I was looking for Calbee over the New Years holidays and saw it hanging on the wall at a card shop. A quick check of the (blank) back, and a much more scrutinizing look at Engel's vintage guide, confirmed that it was from a set I hadn't seen yet!

Now if I could only find some of those other 1970s Calbee cards I need for my type collection, and one of those Holograph hologram cards from 1989. And all those other oddball vintage cards.

Until next time!

Uncut Sheet: Hideki Matsui

I recently had a discussion about tackling the 1995 BBM set. It's a large set to begin with, and it's full of SPs that will nickel-and-dime you to death if you're trying to finish it by hand.

There are three nine-card short printed puzzle sets included in that lot. Ichiro is the most popular, of course, followed closely by Hideki Matsui and Hideki Irabu. Packs could include one piece of a nine-card puzzle, but all three puzzles were available in some way via uncut sheets.

I got Ichiro several years ago, and now I have Hideki Matsui:

 This is the front. The nine cards show Matsui's swing progression, and I'm sure someone with more interest than I have could crop this image and turn it into a GIF of his swing.

The backs fit together to form one big image from a different angle. This reveals that the uncut sheet has extra image space; I don't have the regular cards to see if they do this as well. Actually, this raises a lot of questions. Are the regular cards like this? If so, why? If not, why is the uncut sheet like this? Also, if not, does BBM discard small strips of cardboard where the images meet? Is this how card companies due borderless cards while avoiding card edges from looking funky? Why don't I know anything about card printing processes? Do uncut sheets exist for the entire set? Where I can get one? ....

Anyway, this was another pickup from Mercari (Japan). I'm very happy to have it, though if I do tackle the full 1995 BBM set I'm not sure if I'll keep this as part of that set or try to obtain all nine regular cards.

Storing it with the regular set would be challenging. I like oversized cards, though; cards up to letter size fit easily enough in binders using different types of card pages, and large cards look great displayed behind player figurines (yes, I take my bobbleheads out of their boxes; I'm a collector, not an investor).

What do you think about oversized cards?

Vintage: Pop Culture, 1960s Japan Style

Topps has been producing its Allen & Ginter line since 2006. This will be its 15th year; that's a long time for a secondary card brand. I would guess that they never thought it would last so long after other throwback lines like Topps206 and Cracker Jack were only successful for a couple series.

But A&G is popular because it balances baseball with pop culture. That's exactly why I like it, too. However, even today I see people complain about the inclusion of subjects like eggs and gamblers; you'd think that after 15 years people would know what to expect.

And what they probably don't realize about sets like Allen & Ginter and Goodwin Champions is that the multi-sport/pop culture nature of the checklists is an homage to the original releases. The original Allen & Ginter N28 set included only ten baseball players in a set of forty sports personalities. And the other two sets they issued with baseball stars had only six players in each 50-card set.

The cards below come from a similar set issued in Japan. Most vintage Japanese collectors already know that a lot of the 1950s and 1960s sets (especially menko) included cartoon characters or other pop culture subjects. This is the JGA 149: c. 1962 Sideways Playing Card set.

JGA 149 has an unknown manufacturer, and was issued in either 1962 or 1963. The 44-card set includes movie and TV stars, sumo wrestlers, and of course, baseball players. The set came on two uncut sheets, each with 22 cards. It doesn't include typical menko symbols, so it rightfully isn't classified as a menko card. However, I'm guessing it was distributed similarly to menko, or it could have been a premium (prize).

Like many menko and other game cards of the era, the cards were distributed as sheets, and later cut into individual cards. The backs are identical and styled similarly to a playing card. The kanji below the playing card image is the player's last name. Usually, the position is included, too. The card above is for Katsuya Nomura, but his position isn't included on the card due to space concerns.

The key card in the set is Sadaharu Oh, who you see on the left, above. His name is only one kanji character, so his position follows. On the right is Masaichi Kaneda, and the last two characters represent his position as well.

I'm missing two baseball players: Shigeo Nagashima (7 of Spades) and Yoshio Yoshida (10 of Hearts). For some reason, Engel's latest guide values the Oh card at twice the value of Nagashima; in Japan it would probably be the other way around, or they would at least be equally valued.

My six-card lot included two sumo wrestlers and Superman.

As little interest as I have in sumo wrestling, I think it would be neat to have a set of the uncut sheets!

Until next time...