New Release: 2017 BBM Hanshin Tigers

The 2017 version of the Tigers team set from BBM hit shelves in mid-April. Each pack is 400 yen and contains 6 cards; 20-pack boxes are thus 8000 yen. A full regular set has 81 cards.

 The base cards for the Tigers have a bit more at the bottom, but includes the team logo in the design. Backs are the same as usual in terms of content.

 The first subset is Newcomers, with three players. Two are foreigners who joined the team this year, plus Ito, who came from another team.

 Milestone showcases three players who are close to, um, milestones. Toritani could reach 2000 hits this year - he was 128 away at the end of last season, but only got 106 hits in 2016. 2000 hits in Japan is the same as 3000 hits in the US.

 Heart of Tigers has six of the team's leaders. Backs have highlights from the 2016 season.

It's nice that the Tigers subsets have good information on the back - BBM is moving in the right direction in some areas this year. Like the other team sets, though, there are way too many small insert sets. All of the regular insert sets have parallels limited to 100, 75, and 50 copies. Here are those reglar inserts:

 Carry On (three players)

 Take Over (four players)

 Smart Starters (five pitchers)

 Curtain Call (three players)

Reborn (three players)

The Tigers set is the first one BBM included a preview image for the Phantom insert set. This is limited to only 25 copies each. The other team sets to date had six cards each, but the Tigers set has 18 cards.

As you'd expect, every player has an autograph card in the set, numbered up to 60 copies.

The following special autographed sets are also included:

• Combo Signatures (2 cards, 3 copies each)
• Silver Signatures - silver foil cards (18 cards, 20 copies each)
• Gold Signatures - gold foil cards (9 cards paralleled from the silver set, 1/1)
• Cross Squall Autographs (3 cards, 10 copies each)
• Rookie Autographs (8 cards, 20 copies each)

New Release: 2017 BBM 1st Version

The flagship BBM set has no big surprises this year in terms of content, but the design is borderless and basic, very much like Stadium Club. I like that, although the photography quality is the same as always (basically, shots of batters batting and pitchers pitching).

 For my base card, I had to go with Zippy Zappy favorite Yudai Ohno. Several of the photos in the base set appear to be from Spring Training, which is both good and bad. Players who have been with a team for a long time should have in-game photos, or at least interesting photos from Spring Training - not just batters batting and pitchers pitching. But I digress.

 The lone subset is the team checklists. Once again, BBM went with images from Spring Training, which means the Fighters are shown in the US. Their checklist makes it very obvious with a wide shot including much of the stadium's outfield.

 The cross-brand set this year is Cross Squall and includes rainbows, hard rain and twinkling stars (is that supposed to be glistening hail?) as waves crash upon a rocky shore. The backs include the original photo with the original background, as usual. Cards #1-36 are found in 1st Version; we can expect 36 more in 2nd Version and another 36 in the premium brand. There is a parallel numbered to 100 copies and a 1/1 parallel as well. Additionally, autographed versions of this set are found in many of BBM's pack-based sets. Images are below.

A 3D Cross Squall set is also inserted into packs. One player from each team gets a 3D card, serially numbered to 25. These are numbered separately from the regular Cross Squall set.

 Hyper Nova is one of two inserts found in 1st Version (Cross Squall excluded). There are 12 cards, one per team, and a parallel serially numbered to 100.

The other insert is Rookie Card Reprints. Again, 12 players - one per team - are found in this set, with their rookie cards reprinted. If you couldn't have figured that out from the name. The cards are easily distinguishable by the foil stamp on the front.

As for parallels, 1st Version has tons of them:

• Foil Signature parallels (8 players per team)
• Silver Signature (1 in 7 packs)
• Gold Signature (#/100)
• Holo Signature (#/50)
• Red Signature (#/25)
• Green Signature (#/10)
• Rookie Parallels (#/150 and #/50 versions this year)
• Photo Variation cards - one per team

The photo variations are similar to regular Topps SP variations - the photo on the card is different from the regular version. This is new for BBM, though. They don't seem to be all that rare, but they are carrying "insert" card prices in shops.

 

There are three memorabilia cards for Shohei Ohtani and Seiya Suzuki. The solo cards have 200 copies each with patch parallels numbered to 20. The dual card is numbered to 10.

 

The solo Cross Squall autographs are limited to 5-30 copies each. The two combos are limited to 2 and 3 copies each.

Additionally, there are "special" autographs limited to 3-5 copies each for seven players.

New Release: 2017 BBM Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles

The team set for the Golden Eagles was released in early April, though it seems it hit shelves a day or two after the Swallows set came out. 6 cards per 400-yen pack, 20 packs per 8000-yen box.

 Here are the base cards; as you can see the design remains simple and unobtrusive. Backs have one line of statistics plus career totals and a short biographs.

The first subset after the regular base cards is Newcomer, featuring players added to the team during the offseason. Backs include full career stats. Only two players are in this subset.

 Next is Great Promise, a three-card subset young superstars. The back of Matsui's card shows his statistics versus other Eagles players and compared to other NPB players during the 2016 season.

 Eager Eagles again has statistics on the back, with lots of charts. Shimauchi's has his performance in each stadium. There are nine cards in this set.

There are six insert sets, each with three cards. Technically, BBM makes an 18 card insert set for each team and splits it up into lots of subsets which are all numbered separately. For the Golden Eagles inserts, all of the sets have two parallels: one numbered to 75 copies and one numbered to 50 copies. I am happy that five of the six sets have something more on the back than just the photo repeated; it's just more graphs, but that's better than nothing. There's still no real clue as to what each insert set's name really represents (except, perhaps, Hitmakers).

 Honor of Eagles

 Hitmakers

 Knock-Down

 Make A Wish

 Tough Enough

Concentration

Additionally, Phantom is a limited insert set serial-numbered to 25 copies each. There are six cards in the set.

The usual autographs are found as well.

Premium autographs include:

• combo autograph (1 card, 4 copies)
• rookie autographs (10 cards, 10 copies each)
• silver signatures - cards with silver backgrounds (9 cards, 10 copies each)
• gold signature parallel (9 cards, 1/1)
• Cross Squall (3 cards, 10 copies each)