Time to finish up the reviews of the 2023 releases by covering everything that wasn't done by BBM, Calbee, Epoch or Topps...
After all these years, I still don't know for sure what to call this one outfilt but I'm going to go with "TIC" as opposed to "Hits" or "Produce 216". They did only two card sets this year - a "mini colored paper" or "mini shikishi" team set for the Hawks and a set of traditionally size cards called "Swallows Used Ball".
I'm sure there were any number of team issued sets last year but as usual I only know about less than a handful of them. The Eagles released their usual two team sets - "1st Version" and "2nd Version" - and the Lions again did something called "L Collection Vol. 1" in collaboration with BBM (and once again there doesn't seem to have been a Vol. 2). One new item for the year was a set that I assume was issued for the Fighters called something like "Fighters Girl 37Card" which featured the team's cheerleaders/dance squad.
Again, I know that teams did their own sets this year but I don't know the details of any of them. What I will tell you is that the Baystars did several sets that included a foreign player who for some reason was not included in any sets from BBM, Calbee, Epoch or Topps. There are at least ten Baystars issued cards of this player.
As far as I can tell, Konami did not do their collectible card game set called "Baseball Collection" this year. I believe this would be the first year since 2017 they didn't do it - I know they did it every year between 2018 and 2022.
If my count is right, there were a total of 60 NPB sets issued in 2023 (counting sets with 2022 "cover dates" that weren't published until 2023) which is five less than 2022.
NPB players appeared in US released sets as well in 2023. Besides the multitude of WBC sets from Topps featuring members of Samurai Japan (and not just Shohei Ohtani), Tomoyuki Sugano of the Giants appeared on two cards in Panini's Prizm set over the summer.
There were five somewhat major KBO sets released in 2023. Three of these were from SCC - a second (following the one in 2022) "KBO Legend" set featuring retired players and two sets with active players - "Rainbow Draft" and "Karbon". In addition, an outfit called "Via" did a set called "Jamsil Rivalry" that featured retired players from the OB/Doosan Bears and LG Twins - the two teams that share Jamil Stadium in Seoul. Lastly, Hobby Korea issued a box set called "2023 EPIC Series Baseball Legend Baek In-Cheon" which featured five facsimile autographed cards and one real autographed card of NPB and KBO legend Baek In-Cheon (who played in Japan under the name "Jinten Haku"). While I have this listed as a KBO set, I could have easily listed it as an NPB set instead since four of the five cards portray Baek in NPB uniforms (two cards with the Taiheiyo Club Lions and one each with the Toei Flyers and Lotte Orions) and only one in a KBO uniform (MBC Chungryong).
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