More New Stuff

As we move into the second month of 2014 there are a couple new sets that have gotten announced:

- for the first time ever, BBM is putting out a box set dedicated to a player who is currently playing in the US - Hiroyuki Nakajima.  It's a 19 card set including 18 base cards and one "special" card - looks like autographed and a t-shirt memorabilia cards are possible.  I think the name of the set is something like "Next BBM Baseball Card Portraits Hiroyuki Nakajima" although it's possible that those words should be rearranged somewhat.  I'll be curious what the images on the cards look like - in the sample images there is one picture of him in a Lions uniform and all the rest show him in street clothes.  The set will be released in early March.

- Apparently BBM's Classic set last year was successful enough that they are re-using the theme with a small box set called "Rookie Edition Classic".  This will be a 25 card box set featuring 24 base cards and one special card - possible autograph and die-cut cards.  The 24 base cards are split between 12 cards of active players and 12 cards of OB players (I'd assume one per team for both groups).  All the base cards use the design of the 2003 Rookie Edition set (which was the inaugural one of those sets).  Despite the name, it does not look like the active players are current rookies - the two sample cards are Kazuo Matsui and Shinnosuke Abe - although it looks like the picture is from the player's rookie year.  The set comes out in late February.

- Frontier International is back this year with three new "Rookie And Young Star" sets (so far).  Like last year, the Lions and Buffaloes are featured in sets along with the Carp (instead of the Baystars) - although there's no reason to believe there won't be more sets released as the year goes on.  Each box set contains one autograph card along with either 24 (Lions and Carp) or 25 (Buffaloes) base cards.  The autograph cards could be either active or OB players from the team.  The base cards will contain active players only although they won't necessarily be rookies or young stars.  The Buffaloes and Carp sets are listed as coming out in March while the Lions set (despite being originally listed first) is apparently not getting released until the beginning of May.