US Cards Of (Limited) Interest

I've learned about a couple US card releases that may be of some interest to Japanese card collectors.  Then again, maybe not...

- Topps released the 2023 edition of their high end shiny card set called "Finest" about a week and a half ago.  The set includes a 25 card insert set called "2000 Topps Finest World’s Finest" which includes 25 players in their World Baseball Classic uniforms.  All 25 players are on MLB teams and there's only one player from either Samurai Japan or South Korea - Shohei Ohtani (seen in the above image that was swiped from Ebay).  I think there's only one player in the set who wasn't in either the Global Stars or the Topps 2 WBC Stars inserts (or both) - Cedric Mullins.  Given that I generally find these cards to be pretty ugly and they're also very expensive - the auction for the Ohtani card I swiped the image from has a BIN of $90 - this is a hard "nope" from me.  I've already spent WAY too much money this year on WBC cards (although I did pick up the Mullins card for $4).

- Kenny (aka Zippy Zappy) told me the other day that Panini has an autographed card of Tomoyuki Sugano of the Yomiuri Giants in their "1990 Donruss" set.  Or to be more accurate, there's a redemption card for an autographed Sugano card available.  There's also a dual autograph card of Sugano and Masataka Yoshida in the Panini Three and Two set - this is also a redemption card.  Not sure how this has come about other than Panini trying to figure out how to fill sets now that they don't have an MLBPA license (and I'm not sure how they are able to have Yoshida).  Sugano's kind of an odd choice as he's 33 and has probably already missed any chance of playing in MLB (he made an attempt during the 2020-21 offseason but didn't get any offers he liked).  You'd have thought they'd have tried to get Munetaka Murakami, Roki Sasaki or Yoshinobu Yamamoto instead - younger players who are likely to be coming to MLB in the next few years.  However it's possible that since they were all on the WBC team that Topps has them locked up to some sort of exclusive deal for the North American market.  Kenny pointed out one interesting aspect of Sugano having a certified autograph - Yomiuri prohibits their active players from having certified autograph cards.  I had never noticed this before but a little looking around confirmed it - for example there are no autograph cards available with BBM's annual Giants team sets.  Curiosity has gotten the best of me and I picked up one of the Donruss redemption cards off Ebay for $15 ($20-ish with shipping).  I've heard some horror stories about Panini redemptions but I'll hope for the best.