These first two are the one I'm really not sure about. I've never seen them before and Ryan didn't remember anything about them. I don't have any team issued cards for the Carp so I was kind of hoping that's what these were but there's a "Tanaka Foods" line on the bottom of the back so I suspect this was some sort of food issue. Since they list the player's lifetime stats through 2019 I'm assuming these are from 2020. At 2 3/8" by 2 3/4" the cards are smaller than standard size and have rounded corners although it's probably not clear in the scans. Here's the front and back of the two cards Ryan sent me:
The background of the Kikuchi card is shiny gold so I wonder if it's actually a parallel.
Next up is a Yoshio Itoi card that was given away by Lawson's. I think this was a regional issue only available in Hokkaido that only featured Fighters players. There's nothing on the card indicating when it was issued (the back just says "Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters Players Card") but the auction that I asked Ryan to bid on to get it for me said it was from 2011.
I don't view this as a team issued card set since it was given away by Lawson's but I could be convinced otherwise.
On to some unambiguous cards...
This is a really cool card from the 2013 Baystars BSpirit set featuring three "2013 Samurai Japan Members" from the Baystars - Shoichi Inoh, Takayuki Kajitani and Kazuki Mishima. Now I know you're saying to yourself "Hey, wait a minute, none of those three guys were on the 2013 WBC team" and you'd be correct. The 2013 Samurai Japan team in question here was the one that took part in the "2013 Baseball Challenge" series against Taiwan in Taiwan in early November of 2013. Here's the front and back of the card:
Ryan also picked up two cards from the 2021 Baystars BSpirit set for me:
He picked up a couple oddball Giants cards for me as well. Here's the front and back of a "Giants Winning Game" card from 2016 featuring the team's eleventh win of the season on April 16th. Luis Cruz put the Giants ahead for good with a tie-breaking solo home run in the fifth inning and is featured on the front and back of the card:
He also picked up this blank backed sticker of Ginjiro Sumitani. I don't know when it was issued but it (obviously) had to be between 2019 and 2021, when Sumitani was with the Giants.
Finally Ryan also sent me two cards from the 2021 Kobe Sanda Bravers team set. The Bravers play in the Kansai Independent League although 2021 was the only year the team went by that name. Before that they were the Hyogo Blue Sandars and since then they've been the Hyogo Bravers. The cards were issued by AIAIO and were available on the team's website for 280 yen apiece. (You can buy a complete 2022 set over there for 6000 yen which seems a little pricey to me for an independent league team set). I have no idea who either of these two guys are (Shintani doesn't appear to still be with the team) but they're nice looking cards:
No comments:
Post a Comment