First 2024 Set And More Topps Now Samurai Japan Cards

Quick update on some recently announced sets:

- the first set announced for 2024 is the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles 1st Version set which will be out on February 1st, just in time for the opening of training camp.  The set will include 61 "regular" player cards of Eagles players although probably only the ones ended the season with the team and are still on the roster plus the new draftees.  There's 26 cards celebrating the team's 20th Anniversary and ten "Rising Eagles" cards but I'm not sure if those are insert cards or part of the base set.  There's five different varieties of autographed cards available - "Authentic - horizontal", "Authentic - vertical", "Record Achievers", "2024 Rookie Autograph" and "20th Anniversary Legends Autographs".  The last two are sticker autographs while the other three are "on card" autographs.  The "20th Anniversary Legends Autographs" lineup include Hisashi Iwakuma, Kazuo Fukumori, Casey McGehee and Andruw Jones.  There are also jersey (and patch and letter) memorabilia cards for Hideto Asamura.  The most intriguing thing is that they appear to be doing some sort of cross over with Epoch as the set will also have nine "Gem" inserts.  These are pretty rare - the rate is around one per carton with there being 10 boxes in a carton and 20 packs in a box.

- I wondered about this next item when Topps announced Topps Now cards for some of the Samurai Japan players from the Asian Professional Baseball Championship last month and there was confirmation of it today - Topps is doing an on demand Topps Now Samurai Japan team set for the tournament.   I think the set has 28 cards - 26 player cards plus a card for manager Hirokazu Ibata and a team/cover card.  The set sells for 8800 yen if you live in Japan but only 8000 yen if you don't (the extra 800 yen is tax).  On the other hand, shipping is free if you live in Japan but 2000 yen if you want the set shipped to the US.  With shipping the total cost is 10,000 yen or roughly $70.  The sets will be on sale until 5 PM on January 17th in Japan (3 AM EST in the US).