Saturday, March 16, 2013

Showing Off

I'm trying to get myself organized following the trip - trying to figure out the best way I should post stuff about it.  I thought I'd start with a This Card Is Cool style post showing off some of the coolest cards that I picked up during this trip.

I was pleased to discover how much old Calbee was available.  There were several different stores that had it on sale and the prices really weren't super expensive.  I think the highest I paid for any one card was 2000 yen.  Here's some of the highlights:

1973 Calbee #7 - Sadaharu Oh

1973 Calbee #37 - Isao Shibata, Shigeru Takada and Toshimitsu Suetsugu

1973 Calbee #27 - Takashi Yoshida

1975/76 Calbee #361 - Isao Harimoto

1975/76 Calbee #293 - Senichi Hoshino

1975/76 Calbee #1067 - Davey Johnson

1979 Calbee April-June Pacific League Stars OF-2 - Charlie Manuel 

1991 Calbee #121 - Hiroki Nomura and Motonobu Tanishige
Other cards from the 70's, 80's and 90's were also available:

1975 NST #171 - Katsuya Nomura

1975-76 Nippon Ham - Kyosuke Sasaki

1978 Yamakatsu JY10 - Koji Yamamoto

1981 Yamakatsu "Young Giants" - Tatsunori Hara
1989 Lotte #40 - Hiromitsu Kadota
1994 Kanebo Gold Card # 027 - Norihiro Komada
BBM singles from all years were available, depending on the store, including these rookie cards:

1994 BBM #124 - Daisuke Miura

1995 BBM # 554 - Atsunori Inaba
I bought a magazine about the Hankyu Braves put out by BBM a few years ago.  When I was leafing through it in my hotel room that night, I discovered that BBM had included four promo cards for the 2011 Legend Of The Bs set.  What was really cool about them is that not only did they have facsimile gold signatures on them, but they had different pictures than the cards in the actual set:

2011 BBM Legend Of The Bs #B4 - Yutaka Fukumoto
While leaving Seibu Dome, I noticed a capsule machine at the train station selling baseball cards.  I put my 300 yen in and was rewarded with a capsule containing three small baseball cards and a little frame with a chain attached.  The cards appear to be published by Epoch and one card can be slid into the frame to make a key chain.  They are called "Trading Carp Plate" (TCP) and are apparently available for all 12 teams.

2012 Epoch TCP #SL-02 - Hiroyuki Hakajima
I saved what I felt was the coolest card for last.  At a store in Jinbocho that had tons of old books and magazines lining the shelves and floor and some binders filled with amazing old baseball cards, I found a 1950 uncatalogued (as far as I can tell anyway) bromide card of Yukichi Nagatoshi.  What's cool about this card is that Nagatoshi is a member of the Nishi Nippon Pirates, a Central Leage team that only existed in 1950, the first year of the two league system in Japan.  Following the season, they merged with the Nishitetsu Clippers of the Pacific League to become the Nishitetsu Lions, now known as the Saitama Seibu Lions.  I was aware that the Pirates had existed, but I had never seen a picture of a Pirates player until now:

1950 Unknown Bromide - Yukichi Nagatoshi
I plan to do some posts on the card shops and the ballparks I went to over the next week or so.

7 comments:

P-town Tom said...

A capsule machine that gives you cards and a key chain display. I've never heard of anything like that before.

I really like the vintage cards you picked up, especially the Yukichi Nagatoshi you featured at the end.

Jason Presley said...

Found some information in the form of sell sheets on Epoch's website for the capsule cards. Apparently this is a big business for them, and the have their "Capsule Collection" website organized by year and month of release for each series of prizes. And it's great that they have kept so many years of these on their website, all the way back to 2004!

It looks like the baseball cards were released in June 2012 and they only released sets for the Hawks, Lions, Giants, Tigers and Carp.

http://epoch.jp/rc/capsule/2012/main/m06/

In July, they released sets of mascot cards for the Giants, Hawks, Lions Eagles, Tigers and Carp.

http://epoch.jp/rc/capsule/2012/main/m07/

In 2011, there was a set of Tigers jerseys issued in July. Then a 12(?)-card set in October 2011.

http://epoch.jp/rc/capsule/2011/main/m10/img07.html

2010 also had a Hanshin Tigers jersey set in March, then jersey sets for the Hawks and Carp in August.

There was another Hashin jersey set in April 2009.

2008 saw a set of figurines for the Yomiuri Giants in March:

http://epoch.jp/rc/capsule/2008/main/m03/img13.html

Yet another Tigers jersey set in May 2008.

There was a set of player figurines in June & July 2007:

http://epoch.jp/rc/capsule/2007/main/m06/img10.html

http://epoch.jp/rc/capsule/2007/main/m07/img14.html

There was a Shigeo Nagashima figurine set in March 2006. Another NPB figurine set in May 2006.

NPB Card Guy said...

Jason, you're amazing.

I don't know how popular these are. I think I saw some for sale at the Mint Yokohama store but other than that I didn't see any.

Unknown said...

The Yukichi Nagatoshi card is awesome! I like the vintage stuff too. Looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.

Scott

Fuji said...

Cool = 2012 Epoch Hiroyuki Nakajima
Cooler = 1975/76 Calbee Davey Johnson
Coolest = 1973 Sadaharu Oh

Nice finds... thanks for sharing!

Jason Presley said...

I just got that package from Ryan, awesome stuff! I'll be posting about it tonight or this weekend.

He sent a couple of those 2011 TCP "cards". I guess I should have expected the size given that they come in capsules, but they are about 1.25" x 2.25" and maybe .125" thick. I posted the checklist over to TradingCardDB.com. From what I can make out, there is also some kind of special parallel set, but not being able to read it, I can't make it out.

And I agree, that 1973 Calbee sadaharu Oh is awesome!

NPB Card Guy said...

I have to say that I was ecstatic to find that Oh card and it was only 2000 yen (roughly $20-ish)! Numerically, it's the first Oh card in the first Calbee set.

I picked it up in the Mint Ikebukuro store. I was talking to an American ex-pat there who the store owner had located a 1973 Calbee card #1 (Shigeo Nagashima) for. I can't remember exactly what it was priced at, but it wasn't a whole lot for such an iconic card.