More (not) Autographed Bats From the 1979 Calbee Promo!!!

I've had to edit this post a bit. I thought these things were really autographed, but it turns out they are printed signatures on them (see comments). Doh! Still a cool item, but not THAT cool!

Isao Harimoto was the first I acquired and I've already written about it (his is the top one in the above photo). This week I added two more to the collection: hall of famer and former manager of the Chunichi Dragons Morimichi Takagi (middle bat in the above photo) and former Hanshin Tigers all star third baseman Masayuki Kakefu (bottom bat in photo).  All three have come courtesy of Yahoo Auctions, the Takagi from the same guy who sold me the Harimoto and the Kakefu one from a different seller.

The Takagi one is particularly interesting since it isn't in the Calbee collector's collection and thus not on the list of known ones I am compiling, so I can add him to it.  The list of guys who have bats are:

Shoji Sadaoka (Giants)

Shigeru Takada (Giants)

Kiyoshi Nakahata (Giants)

Isao Harimoto (Giants)

Kazumasa Kono (Giants)

Suguru Egawa (Giants)

Sadaharu Oh (Giants)

Masayuki Kakefu (Tigers)

Koji Yamamoto (Carp)

Sachio Kinugasa (Carp)

Akio Saito (Whales)

Yasushi Tao (Dragons)

Morimichi Takagi (Dragons)

Kouichi Tabuchi (Lions)

My enthusiasm for these has waned a bit now that I know they aren’t actually signed, but they are still pretty cool items for the collection!

Calbee was (almost) way ahead of its time: 1979 Calbee (not) Autographed Bats!

The thing I love about collecting Calbee, and vintage Japanese baseball cards in general, is that every time you think you have already found all the awesome old stuff there is to collect you find something new to fall in love with.

In 1979 (and possibly also 1978) Calbee ran what was probably their greatest promotion ever.  If you were lucky enough to find two randomly inserted "Home Run Cards" in packs then if you sent them along with 300 Yen to Calbee you would get an autographed ball of an un-named star player.  I originally thought these were really autographed, but it turns out they are facsimiles. If you only had one Home Run Card you could send that in and get an autographed mascot bat of an also un-named star player.  You can see a picture of a 1979 Home Run card which describes the promo on this post by Ryan.  

I only really became aware of these last week when I was looking up info on the Calbee collector's website and stumbled onto his amazing list of Calbee promo items over the years, which included photos of his awesome collection of balls and bats that were redeemed in 1979.  I knew that I had to get one!!  The bats in particular are so awesome!

So I went auction hunting and found a beautiful one of none other than all time hits leader Isao Harimoto!  It arrived yesterday and is the awesomest-est thing I have in my Calbee collection now.  

According to the Calbee Collector there might have also been the same promotion run in 1978, though I haven't seen any 1978 Home Run Card to confirm that.  

The bats aren't big, I put a card of Harimoto from the 1975-76 Calbee set in the above photo for scale.  There isn't any definitive checklist of players who are in the set there that I know of, but Calbee collector has the following ones so we at least have a partial list. The list is pretty heavily skewed towards Giants players but given the era that is typical.  

Shoji Sadaoka (Giants)

Shigeru Takada (Giants)

Kiyoshi Nakahata (Giants)

Isao Harimoto (Giants)

Kazumasa Kono (Giants)

Suguru Egawa (Giants)

Sadaharu Oh (Giants)

Masayuki Kakefu (Tigers)

Koji Yamamoto (Carp)

Sachio Kinugasa (Carp)

Akio Saito (Whales)

Yasushi Tao (Dragons)

Kouichi Tabuchi (Lions)

A guy with different names on cards in the same set: Koji (Kohji?) Akiyama's 1995 Tokyo Snack Saga

One set I have been adding a few cards to recently is my 1995 Tokyo Snack set.

1995 is a confusing year in Calbee baseball card history because they had two sets that year but also didn't have any sets that year.  Due to a potato shortage they released their cards with popcorn instead of chips.  But their popcorn was sold under the Tokyo Snack brand, so these are labelled as Tokyo Snack rather than Calbee cards.

They also released a 72 card regional set under the Choco Snack label that year in the Tokyo and Saitama areas in 1995 so they did two sets,but neither of them were attached to Calbee potato chips (though the Choco Snack set does say "Calbee" on the back")

The Tokyo Snack set is the larger of the two with 162 cards issued in two series (1-72 is first series, 73 to 162 is second series).  It is also the one I am working on, the Choco Snack cards will wait for another day.

The Tokyo Snack set is kind of hard to find, but the second series (which unfortunately constitutes the majority) was short printed and is significantly more expensive.  I have about half the first series now but only a few of the second series.

One of the second series cards I recently picked up is #158 featuring Hawks Hall of Famer Kohji Akiyama.  I though this looked weird and on looking through my first series cards I found another one of him (#67) but with his name spelled differently - Koji Akiyama.

I though this was kind of funny - this must be the only time a guy appeared on two cards in the same set but with his name spelled differently and neither of them being an error.  The problem arises because there is a lot of confusion with respect to how to Romanize his first name and both cards are within the bounds of reasonable interpretations.

His first name is 幸二（こうじ）which if you spell it out the normal way would be Kouji.  But that looks a bit odd, so Koji is probably better.  Adding an "h" to make it Kohji is also a possibility but looks kind of awkward.

This is probably just a minor bit of sloppiness that occurs when you have two different guys writing names down rather than a deliberate attempt to update his name spelling in the second series, but its kind of cool.

Tough day for Cancer

Its been a pretty lousy 24 hours in cancer related news around here.  Sachio Kinugasa, Japan's Iron Man who played 2215 consecutive games died yesterday of colon cancer.  He is one of my favorite players from the 70s so its quite sad to see him go.

I wasn't going to blog about this, but on a personal note my cousin's daughter also died of cancer yesterday, probably within hours of Kinugasa.  The doctors found a tumor in her brain about 4 years ago.  She went through chemo and surgery and they thought they had gotten it all, but it came back late last year and spread quickly.  They couldn't do anything for her and she died peacefully at home surrounded by family.  She was just 7 years old and the world is a much lesser place without her smiling face in it.

So if you have loved ones out there, go give them a hug and appreciate the time you have.

I'll return to regular baseball card posting that doesn't include stories of devastating loss from tomorrow!

1993 Calbee Big Size Cards

 I have added another oddball set to my collecting aims: 1993 Calbee Big Size cards.  I won three of them - Hideki Matsui, Tatsunori Hara and Atsuya Furuta,  in an auction last week and they arrived in the mail today!

As the name implies, the set was issued by Calbee, in 1993, and the cards are big size.  Other than that I can't tell you much about them.  I assume they were some sort of mail-in prize that Calbee gave out that year, but can't say that for 100% sure.

There are 27 cards in the set (they are numbered "8/27"etc on the back) but I'm not sure about the entire checklist - Hideo Nomo also has a card in it and a few other big name players seem to as well, though no Ichiro.  The designs of the cards are the same as the regular 1993 Calbee on the front, the backs are slightly different in that they say "1993 Big Size Card"across the top.

The cards are big but not huge.  I wasn't sure what to expect when I ordered them since there was nothing in the photos to provide scale, but they are about twice the size of a regular Calbee card (I put a 2018 Calbee card in the photo for comparison).

From what I can tell, Calbee also did a Big Size Card set in 1990, though unlike these it has a distinct design from the regular set of that year (which itself had two quite different designs).  Those are the only two years for which Google searches for Calbee Big Size Card turns up anything, so I assume they are the only years Calbee did this (edited to note that they made them in 1991 as well according to NPB Guy, and also there was a set in 1992 - there are some pictures of them here!).

The Matsui is probably the key card in the set since it is from his rookie year.  I'm not sure if it counts as a technical "rookie card"since it isn't from the base set, but its pretty cool.  These cards seem to be quite a bit harder to find than the regular 1993 Calbee set, which itself is pretty hard to find.  There are only a few up on Yahoo Auctions and nowhere near enough to put together a list of all 27.  Intriguingly this listing here for a Shigeo Nagashima card from the set comes with a mini plastic  frame that is the right size for the card.  The listing doesn't say so but I wonder if those little frames might have come with the cards as part of the promotion.

Anyway, at 27 cards this seems like a set that shouldn't be too hard to complete even if they aren't easy to find, so I'm putting it on my "to-do"list!

Edit: BONUS CHECKLIST!

Based on the Calbee collector website (in Japanese) who has most of the cards in the set, I've been able to put together a checklist of most of the cards in English below (some only have last names because I can't make out their first names, cards number 8, 22 and 26 I still don't know) for those of you who decide to follow me down this collecting wormhole:

1. Koji Akiyama
2. Kazuhiro Kiyohara
3. Hideo Nomo
4. Daijiro Oishi
5. Hoshino Nobuyuki
6. Takahashi
7. Choji Murata
8.
9. Nishizaki
10. Terushi Nakajima
11. Satoru Komiyama
12. Takeshi Aikou
13. Takahiro Ikeyama
14. Iida
15. Atsuya Furuta
16. Masumi Kuwata
17. Tatsunori Hara
18. Hideki Matsui
19. Shigeo Nagashima
20. Koji Nakata
21. Yutaka Wada
22.
23. Tomonori Maeda
24. Kazuhiro Sasaki
25. Takagi
26.
27. Hiromitsu Ochiai

Catching the Calbee Pack Breakers: New Rite of Spring (and mid-late summer too)

Its barely mid April and I have already completed the first series of this year's Calbee regular cards!

Well, at least I have all the cards in the first series,  it might be unfair to claim that I completed it.

In recent years something which I have mixed feelings about has emerged in the Calbee card collecting world: guys who buy Calbee cases in bulk, bust open all the packs and re-sell them on Yahoo Auctions.

These guys are both a godsend and a curse.  They are a godsend for set collectors like me because the regular cards are not central to their business model.  They just put those together in big lots, sometimes as complete sets, and sell them for peanuts - I paid about 700 Yen including shipping for the entire first series, which would have cost me hundreds of dollars if I had tried to do it by buying bags of chips like I used to.  So there are huge economic efficiencies to be realized by sourcing your Calbee cards from guys like this.

I bought mine from a seller called mri_11k13, you can see his listings here.   As you can see from his listings, which are almost entirely 2018 Calbees, the real money they make are from selling the gold signature parallels, which they sell for about 1000-2000 Yen each.  The regular cards are loss leaders which they just want to get rid of and are priced accordingly.  For a base set-collecting guy like me who has zero interest in the inserts and parallels, this is sort of wonderful.

But it also sort of isn't, which is why I say they are also a curse.  Now that I have all the cards, I have no incentive to go out and try to track down bags of chips in convenience stores like I used to.  Putting the set together is really the main fun part of collecting, simply having the set is actually kind of boring.

This is of course exactly the same complaints that I remember hearing as a young collector in the 1980s from older guys who bemoaned the existence of factory sets as spoiling the fun.  They were right.  Another one of the things I love about Calbee is the lack of factory sets!  But now there exists a de facto equivalent thanks to these wonderful, horrible, great, terrible re-sellers.

Ah, first world problems.

Anyway, I started putting my Calbee sets together primarily through buying from guys like this on Yahoo Auctions about 3 years ago simply because the bargains are too good to resist.  In the past I've generally preferred to buy semi-complete lots rather than full sets like this one so that I at least had a bit of actual collecting to do. This one was more of an impulse purchase that I almost regret, maybe I could send ten random cards back to the guy or something so that I can have an excuse to go buy a few bags of chips and then feel happy when I get one of the cards I gave back.

If you are interested in getting Calbee sets on the cheap from these guys it is worth noting that you have to strike while the iron is hot.  They only do this when a new series comes out and when they sell out (of the cheap regular set lots) they basically disappear from Yahoo Auctions altogether.  So if you want a first Series set of 2018 Calbee now is the time to get it.  You can't find such deals on 2017 or 2016 sets anymore (I just checked!) So waiting for these guys to put the Calbee cards in big lots on Yahoo Auctions has become a new rite for me along with spotting the first Calbee cards on store shelves.  When Series 2 comes out I'll be waiting for both.

Oh and the cards this year, as I mentioned in an earlier post, are pretty awesome. I love the kanji on the card fronts!  Flipping through the cards I noticed that three of them picture players holding up signs commemorating career achievements - Nobuhiro Matsuda of the Hawks (nickname is pachi-pachi because he has this eye twitch) for hitting his 200th home run and Shinnosuke Abe and Masahiro Araki for their 2,000th career hits.

JMC 1 Mr. Baseball NST Cards

I just picked up a lot of cards from the 1975 NST Mr. Baseball set.  This is another one of my forays into oddball sets from the 70s, which I absolutely love.

According to Dave these were part of a 288 card set in honor of Shigeo Nagashima, who had retired a couple years earlier.  I got 14 of the cards, all pictured above.  The cards are about the same size (though a bit narrower) as Calbee cards of the era.  The backs are blank so they are basically just little photo cards with white borders.  They aren't as appealing as the Calbees of the era, at least to me, but they are still kind of neat.  Being blank backed a full set must be a real chore to put together so I think I'll avoid trying that monster for now!

These little Yamakatsu cards are just too cute to resist

 I have a long distance card trading relationship with a collector in the US named Jay.  He sends me Expos cards from the 1970s and I send him Japanese cards for sets he is working on.  I love doing this since its quite fun to get envelopes full of Expos cards from time to time and I also learn a bit more about Japanese cards that he is interested in but I hadn't been working on.  I recently picked up some 1980 Yamakatsu cards that he needed and I was quite taken by them.  The 1979 and 1980 Yamakatsu sets are pretty neat - they are about the same size as Calbee cards from the 1980s and basically everything that draws me to vintage Calbee cards draws me to these Yamakatsu ones too - simple design and colorful photos featuring in game action on the front, simple backs with a brief write up on the back.  What is not to like?

So I decided to jump into the fray and bought a few cards from the 1979 set (and one from the 1980 set which Jay didn't need).  All I can say is that I love these little things!

These aren't the first Yamakatsu cards I've bought, I actually already have a 1978 set on the go, but those are larger cards (also awesome, I have to do a post about them too sometime), and I also have a couple of the post card sized ones including my only Japanese card of Willie Davis.

As is always the case, Dave has done a great overview of the Yamakatsu cards on his blog so I won't go into the details.  The 1979 set has 128 cards and the 1980 set has 64 and I don't think there are any hyper rare short prints, so compared to Calbee sets of similar vintage collecting both should be a manageable goal, and I've already got bids in on some other ones on Yahoo Auctions.  So this is my new collecting project of 2018!

Sports Market Report does Japanese Baseball Cards

As Dave over at Japanese Baseball Cards recently posted, the current Sports Market Report (PSA's magazine) is almost entirely devoted to Japanese cards, which is really cool to see.  Kevin Glew wrote most of the articles and interviewed me (and some other much more established people in the hobby, including Dave) for this one that is mainly about Calbee cards which has a few quotes of mine sprinkled in it.

Its great to see the Japanese card hobby getting this kind of exposure and the articles do a good job of outlining the basics of the hobby and comparing it to that in the US.  There is also a great article by Mark Holt about the 1967 Kabaya Leaf set which had a lot of tidbits of information I didn't know about it (I have 2 cards from the set, so pretty early in putting that one together).

As a Calbee collector I have my biases which I've elaborated on here before.  I wonder if this might spur some mutual recognition between PSA and Calbee collectors.  Their Population Reports indicate that almost nobody gets Calbee cards graded - the iconic 1973 set which is mentioned in the article for example has only had 46 cards graded according to their listing, and they only identify cards which have been graded so they don't even seem to have a complete checklist of the set (other sets are similar, the only exception seeming to be some Ichiro and Nomo Calbees from the early 90s for obvious reasons).  I'm not a collector of graded cards, but I do use PSAs website as a useful resource and it would be nice to see the Japanese side tidied up a bit!