Miscellaneous Card Pickups

I wanted to do a quick "catch-all" post about a bunch of miscellaneous cards I picked up during the trip.

Kanebo did two kind of "puffy, 3-D-ish" cards in 1993-94.  They were similar to the "Action Packed" cards in the US from around the same time if anyone remembers them.  I've had several of the 1993 cards for years but I didn't get my first two 1994 cards until my Japan trip in 2013.  I added another 1994 card this trip - I picked this up at G-Freak in Tokyo:

1994 Kanebo #017

One of my goals for the trip was to try to pick up examples from all the BBM pack based, "comprehensive" team sets that I didn't already have.  I failed at this miserably, mostly because I didn't really have a plan for how I was going to go about doing it.  But I did pick up two cards from the 1999 Tigers set at Wrappers in Tokyo.  This was the first pack-based team set that BBM did:

1999 BBM Tigers #T1

1999 BBM Tigers #T39

The Nomura card has a yellow border on the bottom just like the Yano card - not sure why my scanner cut it off one but left it on the other.

I was going through a box of Carp singles at G-Freak and came across this card of Makoto Kozuru from the 2003 BBM Sluggers set that appealed to me (I found the Kanebo Nomura in the same box):

2003 BBM Sluggers #008

I came across some cards from the 2003 JPBPA set at Mint Ponyland in Nagoya.  I'm not a big fan of this set but I thought I'd take the opportunity to pick some oddball cards of a couple favorite players:

2003 JPBPA #R-AF

2003 JPBPA #SP-KK

2003 JPBPA #SP-MO

Here's another card that appealed to me as I was thumbing through boxes of cards at G-Freak:

2013 BBM Tigers #T086

BBM's been doing "secret" versions of cards since 2017 - these are short printed photo variants of a handful of cards from their 1st and 2nd Version, Fusion and Rookie Edition sets.  I had decided to get all of these for 2017 and I've kind of regretted it ever since.  I had gotten all the 1st Version ones by the end of 2017 but many of the 2nd Version and Fusion ones had eluded me until now (there were no Rookie Edition "secret" versions in 2017).  I picked up all but one of the 2nd Version ones and all of the Fusion ones on the trip - I think I got most if not all of these at Coletre in Tokyo:

2017 BBM 2nd Version #511

2017 BBM 2nd Version #549

2017 BBM 2nd Version #428

2017 BBM 2nd Version #583

2017 BBM 2nd Version #422

2017 BBM 2nd Version #498

2017 BBM 2nd Version #519

2017 BBM Fusion #064

2017 BBM Fusion #050

2017 BBM Fusion #091

2017 BBM Fusion #066

2017 BBM Fusion #031

If you're wondering, the final "secret" version I need from the 2nd Version set is a "Ceremonial First Pitch" card of Ami Inamura.  I was unable to locate this card in any store I went into but I have since found a Yahoo! Japan Auction selling it for 1600 yen.  I asked Ryan to pick it up for me - much more expensive than I was hoping to get it for but the "secret" experiment for me is now done and I won't ever try to do it again!

Lastly I picked up some cards from Epoch's Rookies & Stars sets from the last couple years.  Other than the Lions team set from last year that I picked up I've mostly only been interested in cards from these sets that feature players or coaches who aren't in BBM's team sets.  The players have pretty much only been ikusei players as BBM's team sets haven't included them since 2014.  I'm pretty sure I got all of these cards at either Coletre or Mint Ikebukuro in Tokyo:

2018 Epoch Swallows Rookies & Stars #3

2018 Epoch Swallows Rookies & Stars #2

2018 Epoch Swallows Rookies & Stars #43

2018 Epoch Swallows Rookies & Stars #34

2019 Epoch Baystars Rookies & Stars #09

2019 Epoch Baystars Rookies & Stars #07

2019 Epoch Lions Rookies & Stars #09

I was a little disappointed with Epoch's team sets this year.  Last year there were about 20 or so cards of coaches and ikusei players in the sets but this year I've only seen four - the three shown here and a card of Dragons' farm team manager Michihiro Ogasawara.