1993 BBM Set

1993 In A Box

Size:  498 cards
Cards Per Team:  35 (team card, manager + 33 players)
Team Card Theme:  Team logos
Number Of Leader Cards: 27
Checklists: 8
Subsets: Affluent Nineteen (19 highest paid players?), Nostalgic Stars (10 cards featuring players from the 1970's); Nagashima Special (5 cards celebrating Shigeo Nagashima's return as Giants manager); Combination Cards (5 cards featuring two players on each card); Murakami Memories (4 cards detailing Masanori Murakami's career)
Inserts:  Team logo holograms.
Notable Rookies:  Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui, Tsuyoshi Shinjyo, Shigeki Noguchi, Takuro Ishii, Takeshi Yamasaki
Late Series:  None

Notes:

This was the last of the BBM sets to be issued as a factory set.  It was also the first to feature full color backs including a head shot of the player.

Although the set was not issued in two series, there are two numbers in the set reserved for the team logo holograms - #237 and #500.  There is no indication on the holograms what their card number is however.

I'm not sure what the "Affluent Nineteen" subset is commemorating.  My first thought was that 19 cards meant it was a "Best 9" kind of group - maybe the highest paid player at each position in both leagues (including DH in the Pacific League).  But there's six pitchers included, so that doesn't work.  So I suspect that it's simply the highest paid 19 players, but that could be wrong too.  The players in the subset are Koji Akiyama, Katsuya Furuta, Tatsunori Hara, Ken Hirano, Katsumi Hirosawa, Takehiro Ikeyama, Hiromichi Ishige, Tsutomu Itoh, Taigen Kaku, Yoshitaka Katori, Manabu Kitabeppu, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Norihiro Komada, Hideo Nomo, Hiromitsu Ochiai, Daijiro Ohishi, Masaki Saitoh, Hatsuhiko Tsuji and Hisanobu Watanabe.

#450

The "Nostalgic Stars" subset features players from the 1970's and 1980's.  They are Michiyo Arito, Taira Fujita, Yutaka Fukumoto, Masaji Hiramatsu, Senichi Hoshino, Choji Murata, Katuo Ohsugi, Koichi Tabuchi, Shigeru Takada and Hisashi Yamada.

#461

Instead of having a "Combination Card" for each team like they did in 1992, the 1993 set only has five of these cards altogether.  Two of them are for the Tigers and then one each for the Swallows, Marines and Giants.  The cards don't have names like "Young Tigers" like the 1992 cards did either.

#473

The four "Murakami Memories" cards depict Masanori Murakami with each of his four teams - the Nankai Hawks, the San Francisco Giants, the Hanshin Tigers and the Nippon Ham Fighters.  I believe that this is the only BBM card that depicts someone in an MLB uniform, but I could be wrong.

#477

The 1993 set might not have a lot of notable rookies, but it makes up for that by having by far the two biggest ones - Ichiro and Hideki Matsui.  Both Takuro Ishii and Tsuyoshi Shinjyo appeared in the 1992 Calbee set (and Shinjyo is on one of the Tigers "Combination Cards").  In fact, of the six five guys I have listed as significant, only Matsui and Noguchi's cards are actually marked as "Rookie".

#157

Some other sample cards:

#97

#130

#3

#469

#490

Factory Set

Scratch Game Promo inserted into packs

Back of Card #272 (Yukio Tanaka) (Odd multicolor seems to be an artifact from the scanner)

Wrapper

UPDATE: After doing a little research on Takeshi Yamasaki last week, I realized that his first BBM card was also in the 1993 set. I've updated the post to reflect this.

UPDATE AGAIN:  After doing a little MORE research on Takeshi Yamasaki, I need to correct the correction.  Yamasaki's first BBM card was in the 1991 set, but his last name was spelled "Yamazaki" so my database had him in the wrong spot.  The first card with his name spelled "Yamasaki" was his 1993 card.  I've re-updated the post.