Calbee Anniversaries

I had mentioned a few weeks back that 2022 is the 50th year that Calbee has published baseball cards.  I'm assuming that they will be doing something to commemorate this in this year's sets although I don't know what it will be yet - while they announced the Series One set last month they're not going to release the set's checklist for another couple weeks.  I thought it might be interesting to see what they've done in the past to commemorate previous anniversaries.

As far as I can tell, Calbee didn't do anything to commemorate any anniversary until their 30th Anniversary in 2002.  What they did that year (besides every card having a special "30th Anniversary" logo on it) was have a "Memorial" subset that featured reproductions of cards from a previous Calbee set.  There were 24 "Memorial" cards in Series One and 12 in Series Two (there were only two Series that year).  Now if you've been paying any attention to how Japanese cards work you'll immediately assume if the number of cards in a subset is a multiple of 12 then the cards in that subset are evenly divided between the 12 NPB teams and you'd be right.  Calbee's plan was that the "Memorial" cards in Series One would feature a reprinted card for the manager and one player from each team while the ones for Series Two would featured a reprinted card for another player from each team.  But there was a problem with this plan - Lions manager Haruki Ihara had never had a Calbee card.  In fact, as far as I can tell, Haruki Ihara had NEVER had a baseball card at all before he became the Lions manager in 2002.  Calbee's solution was to just to pick an additional player from the Lions to feature in the subset.

Here's a table listing all the reprinted cards from the subset.  I believe, although I'm not positive, that each card was the first Calbee card for the player in question.  If a player had multiple cards in a set (like Sadaharu Oh in the 1973 set, the card used was the lowest card number for that player in the set).  If the player was on a different team (or the team had a different nickname) in 2002 than he was shown with on the original card, I listed his team on the original card (and for the 2002 cards "Buffaloes" means the Kintetsu variety).  I only own about half of this set (for now - Ryan just won an auction for the complete subset on Yahoo! Japan Auctions for me) so I'm making somewhat educated guesses on some of the cards - and avoiding making one at all on the Masataka Nashida card:

Team	Card #	Manager	Original	Card #	Player	Original	Card #	Player	Original
Swallows	M-01	Tsutomu Wakamatsu	1973/74 #195 (Atoms)	M-02	Atsuya Furuta	1991 #132	M-25	Shingo Takatsu	1994 #99
Giants	M-03	Tatsunori Hara	1982 #51	M-04	Kazuhiro Kiyohara	1986 #81 (Lions)	M-26	Hideki Matsui	1993 #1
Baystars	M-05	Masaaki Mori	1973 #25 (Giants)	M-06	Takashi Saitoh	1994 #20	M-27	Takuro Ishii	1994 #19
Carp	M-07	Koji Yamamoto	1973 #61	M-08	Shinji Sasaoka	1991 #6	M-28	Tomonori Maeda	1992 #99
Dragons	M-09	Hisashi Yamada	1973 #89 (Braves)	M-10	Kazuyoshi Tatsunami	1988 #75	M-29	Masahiro Yamamoto	1990 #64
Tigers	M-11	Senichi Hoshino	1973/74 #223 (Dragons)	M-12	Keiichi Yabu	1995 #47	M-30	Shinjiro Hiyama	1996 #60
Buffaloes	M-13	Masataka Nashida	1979 or 1980	M-14	Motoyuki Akahori	1993 #10	M-31	Norihiro Nakamura	1995 #70
Hawks	M-15	Sadaharu Oh	1973 #7 (Giants)	M-16	Koji Akiyama	1985 #366 (Lions)	M-32	Kenichi Wakatabe	1992 #81
Lions	M-17	Kazuo Matsui	1996 #177	M-18	Fumiya Nishiguchi	1996 #121	M-33	Tsutomu Itoh	1986 #170
BlueWave	M-19	Hiromichi Ishige	1981 #43 (Lions)	M-20	Yasuo Fujii	1989 #151 (Braves)	M-34	Tetsuya Shindoh	1993 #64
Marines	M-21	Koji Yamamoto	1975/76/77 #753 (Giants)	M-22	Kiyoshi Hatsushiba	1991 #136 (Orions)	M-35	Tomohiro Kuroki	1997 #088
Fighters	M-23	Yasunori Ohshima	1973/74 #219 (Dragons)	M-24	Makoto Kaneko	1997 #011	M-36	Yukio Tanaka	1989 #43

And yes, there were two guys named Koji Yamamoto who were managing NPB teams in 2002.  

As you can see, the originals of the reprinted cards came from a range of sets between the earliest set in 1973 and the 1997 set.  The year that the card was published in is identified both on the front of the card and in the fine print on the back although Calbee doesn't list the early sets that spanned multiple years as "1973/74", "1974/75" or "1975/76/77" - they just list which ever year the card was actually published in.  So the Wakamatsu card for example just says "1973" while everyone following Engel's lead considers that the "1973/74" set.

OK, enough talk - what do the cards look like?  Basically the front and back of the cards show the front and back of the reprinted cards sitting on a grey (for the Series One cards) or beige (for the Series Two Cards) background.  Here's a couple examples:

#M-02

#M-02 Back

#M-09 (Hisashi Yamada)

#M-09 Back (Hisashi Yamada)

#M-33 (Tsutomu Itoh)

#M-33 Back (Tsutomu Itoh)

One thing about Calbee doing the reprints this way is that you get some sense of the relative sizes of the original cards - the Itoh card is smaller than the Yamada card which is wider but shorter than the Furuta card.  

Here's a direct comparison of the Wakamatsu reprint with the original card:

#M-01 & 1973/74 Calbee #195

#M-01 & 1973/74 Calbee #195 Backs

For their 40th Anniversary in 2012, Calbee went with the reprints again, using a similar theme as before.  Once again they would have a "Memorial" subset.  The subset contained 13 cards in Series One and 12 cards each in Series Two and Three.  The plan was to again feature reprints of cards of all 12 NPB managers in Series One along with cards of Shigeo Nagashima and Sadaharu Oh but once again there was problem - Swallows manager Junji Ogawa never appeared on a Calbee card as a player.  This time, however, Calbee didn't replace him in the "Memorial" subset although they did do something to account for him which I'll get to in a minute.  The 12 cards in the Series Two "Memorial" subset featured a reprinted card of a coach for each team and the 12 cards for Series Three featured reprints of cards for a player on each team.

Here's a table showing all the reprints from 2012.  Unlike the 2002 cards, there are not necessarily the first cards of these players (although a number of them are).  Once again if the player was on a different team (or the team had a different nickname) in 2012 than he was shown with on the original card, I listed his team on the original card (and for the 2012 cards "Buffaloes" means Orix).  

Team	Card #	Manager	Original	Card #	Coach	Original	Card #	Player	Original
Hawks	M-03	Koji Akiyama	1990 #124 (Lions)	M-14	Daijiro Ohishi	1993 #113 (Kintetsu)	M-26	Hiroki Kokubo	1997 #083
Fighters	M-04	Hideki Kuriyama	1989 #249 (Swallows)	M-15	Yukio Tanaka	1990 #151	M-27	Makoto Kaneko	1999 #122
Lions	M-05	Hisanobu Watanabe	1991 #95	M-16	Masahiro Doi	1973/74 #257 (Kintetsu)	M-28	Fumiya Nishiguchi	1997 #045
Buffaloes	M-06	Akinobu Okada	1989 #292 (Tigers)	M-17	Hirofumi Ogawa	1993 #85 (BlueWave)	M-29	Hirotoshi Kitagawa	2002 #052 (Kintetsu)
Eagles	M-07	Senichi Hoshino	1975/76/77 #524 (Dragons)	M-18	Koichi Tabuchi	1975/76/77 #329	M-30	Kazuo Matsui	1997 #077 (Lions)
Marines	M-08	Norifumi Nishimura	1989 #49 (Orions)	M-19	Yoshihiko Takahashi	1980 #73 (Carp)	M-31	Kazuya Fukuura	1999 #069
Dragons	M-09	Morimichi Takagi	1974/75 #724	M-20	Masaru Uno	1981 #125	M-32	Masahiro Yamamoto	1990 #64
Swallows				M-21	Daisuke Araki	1987 #314	M-33	Shinya Miyamoto	2000 #054
Giants	M-10	Tatsunori Hara	1988 #1	M-22	Masaki Saitoh	1990 #49	M-34	Yoshinobu Takahashi	1998 #084
Tigers	M-11	Yutaka Wada	1994 #83	M-23	Keiichi Yabu	1997 #012	M-35	Shinjiro Hiyama	1997 #149
Carp	M-12	Kenjiro Nomura	1991 #53	M-24	Yutaka Ohno	1987 #229	M-36	Tomonori Maeda	1992 #99
Baystars	M-13	Kiyoshi Nakahata	1987 #94 (Giants)	M-25	Yutaka Takagi	1991 #122 (Whales)	M-37	Daisuke Miura	1997 #076
	M-01	Shigeo Nagashima	1973 #1
	M-02	Sadaharu Oh	1973 #7

I found it kind of interesting that a third of the people included in the 2002 "Memorial" subset also appear in the 2012 version - Koji Akiyama, Tatsunori Hara, Shinjiro Hiyama, Senichi Hoshino, Makoto Kaneko, Tomonori Maeda, Kazuo Matsui, Fumiya Nishiguchi, Sadaharu Oh, Yukio Tanaka, Keiichi Yabu and Masahiro Yamamoto.  Oddly enough, the same cards are used for Maeda, Oh and Yamamoto.

The range of years represented in the subset starts in 1973 again and goes to 2002.

Calbee took a different approach to the cards in 2012 than in 2002.  Instead of showing the card on a background, they resized the image of the original card to fit the current card size.  In some cases this meant going back to the original photo and recropping it or moving the text on the front of the card.  For example, compare the 2012 version of Nagashima's iconic 1973 Calbee #1 to the original:

#M-01 & 1973 Calbee #1

Notice on the 2012 card that there's a smidge more of the "3" on the front of his uniform visible.  Also note that the "(巨人)" has been moved up and to the right a little on the 2012 card.

Here's a couple other examples (without the original cards as comparisons):

#M-10 (Tatsunori Hara)

#M-18 (Koichi Tabuchi)

#M-26

And just for grins, here's the front and back of Masahiro Yamamoto's original 1990 card with both the 2002 and 2012 versions:

1990 Calbee #64, 2002 #M-29, 2012 #M-32

1990 Calbee #64, 2002 #M-29, 2012 #M-32 Backs

Notice again that the text got moved on the front of the 2012 card but not the 2002 one.

So as not to leave Junji Ogawa out completely, Calbee issued a "regular" player card for him that used a picture of him from his playing days with the Swallows (1982-91).  It kind of screwed up the checklist that year as the Series One set then had 73 "regular" cards - six per team except for the Swallows having seven.  Here's the front and back of Ogawa's card:

#043

#043 Back

So what do I expect Calbee to do for their 50th Anniversary?  Probably something along the lines of what they did in 2002 or 2012 (and, hey, all 12 current NPB managers had Calbee cards although it was a close thing - I think Hawks manager Hiroshi Fujimoto only had one).  It'd be nice if the reprinted cards weren't tied to the current NPB managers, coaches, and players so that there could be reprints of Ichiro, Hideki Matsui, Hideo Nomo and others.  A lot of the older Calbee cards have similar fronts but maybe they could do cards with current players using some of the few unique Calbee designs - the 1976 pink borders or the 1984 hats or the 1992-95 designs.  But again, my expectation is that it'll be something like what they did before.  I guess we'll know for sure in a week or so.