Calbees

I wasn't really looking for Calbee cards too much on the trip - I was more concentrating on finishing some BBM sets and getting more obscure issues at the card shops I was visiting - but I did end up picking up eight.  I thought I do a quick post showcasing what I got.

I only picked up two relatively recent cards, both Dragons related.  The first is Tyrone Woods from the "League Championship" subset from the 2007 Series One set.  The back of the card has the scores from all the 2006 Dragons regular season games.  I can't remember for sure but I think I bought this card at either Coletre or Mint Ikebukuro.

2007 Calbee LC-4

The other one is from the 2010 Series One "Team Stats" subset.  It shows Kazuyoshi Tatsunami's retirement ceremony from the end of the 2009 season.  The back of the card shows the team's roster and stats for 2009.  I picked this card up at Mint Ponyland in Nagoya.

2009 Calbee TS-02

I picked up a card from one of Calbee's oddest sets at Mint Umeda in Osaka.  In 1998 Calbee issued a set of "CD" cards that were available by redeeming "Lucky" cards.  These were oversized die-cut cards that came in a plastic case about the same size as a CD case.  Here's the front and back of the card outside of the case:

1998 Calbee CD #CD-16

1998 Calbee CD #CD-16 Back

Here's what the card looks like in the case.  Unfortunately the case got cracked while in my suitcase for two weeks.

The remainder of the Calbees that I got were all from the 1970's.  I picked up this card of 1973 Tatsuhiko Kimata from Mint Ponyland for 2000 yen:

1973 Calbee #69

I paid about 490 yen for this card of Osamu Higashio from the 1973/74 set at Biblio in Tokyo:

1973/74 #Calbee #319

This card is from the 1976/76/77 Calbee set and features Mitsuhiro Adachi of the Hankyu Braves.  I'm pretty sure the picture is from Game One of the 1975 Nippon Series against the Carp.  I'm not quite sure what store I bought this at or how much I paid for it - I think it was Mint Ikebukuro but I'm not positive.

1975/76/77 Calbee #255

This 1977 Calbee card shows Shigeo Nagashima and Masaichi Kaneda when they were the managers of the Giants and Orions respectively.  What's really cool about this card is that Calbee very rarely included cards of anyone in a Lotte uniform prior to 1985 (since Calbee and Lotte are rival snack companies) so a Calbee card of Kaneda is very rare.  I'm pretty sure I got this at Mint Ikebuburo for somewhere between 1000 and 2000 yen.

1977 Calbee #145

The final Calbee card I'm sharing in this post is the most interesting one.  I picked it up at Mandarake, a vintage toy store in Nagoya for 2700 yen.  It's from the 1979 August Best set and depicts Yoshihiko Takahashi of the Carp.  When you see it you'll see why it's interesting:

1979 Calbee August Best #6

I had never see a Calbee card with a border like that on it.  Neither Engel nor the Calbee Collector website make any comment about the "August Best" set looking like this - they both indicate that the cards in that set were the standard borderless photo cards.  Sean and Ryan hadn't seen anything like it either but since I got it Sean discovered someone selling a card like it on Yahoo! Japan Auctions for 5000 yen.  The auction claims it was a Hiroshima only regional issue.  Sean also pointed out that the text on the front of the card celebrates Takahashi's 33 game hitting streak that ended on July 31, 1979 - 33 games is still the longest hitting streak in NPB history.