Early Fall Releases

Once again I've put off doing a "New Releases" post long enough that one of the sets I'm going to talk about is being published as I write this...

- BBM is releasing two more of their "Brilliant" team box sets.  The new ones are for the Dragons and the Hawks.  Like the previously released sets for the Carp, Fighters and Tigers these sets contain 29 cards - a base set of 27 cards, a serially numbered "SPARKLING" insert card and an autographed card.  Both sets will retail for 10,000 yen (~$93).  The Dragons set is out tomorrow (which is right now in Japan) while the Hawks set is being released in early October.

- BBM's annual Rookie Edition Premium set will be out in late October.  This is a box set containing 38 cards - a 36 card base set plus two "special" insert cards which are either autograph or memorabilia cards.  I'm not sure if each box is guaranteed to include an autograph but the web site does say there is the possibility of getting a box with TWO autographed cards.  The 36 cards of the base set break down to three 2019 rookies (which means 2019 draft picks so don't expect Munetaka Murakami to show up) per team.  Each set retails for 15,000 yen (~$140).

- Epoch's got two more of their ultra high end active/OB "Stars & Legends" team sets lined up for release.  The Baystars set will be out on October 12th and in name at least commemorates the 70th Anniversary of the team.  Each box will retail for 14,400 yen (~$135) and contains just four cards - two of which are autographed cards.  The base set contains 56 cards - 12 active players and 44 OB players (including Bobby Rose, Alex Ramirez and Nyjer Morgan).  There are five types of autographed cards (including 1-of-1 autographed baseball cards) as well as serially numbered GEM insert cards.  The Carp set will be released on October 19th and features 14,400 yen boxes with only four cards as well.  One of those four cards will be an autographed card and one of the others will either be an autographed card or a memorabilia card.  The base set has 54 cards - 19 of which are OB players.  There are GEM and GEM BLACK insert cards, two varieties of printed signature cards, patch cards and three different types of autograph cards, two of which has two parallel versions.  There are also two types of booklets that I think are available as an exchange card - one has two autographed cards and the other has an autograph and a patch.

- On October 19th Epoch will also be releasing the "Pacific League Premier Edition" set.  I think this is the fourth year Epoch has released this set.  This is yet another ultra high end set - each 14,100 yen (~$132) box contains eight cards - four regular cards, two insert cards and two "special" insert cards.  There's 54 cards in the base set - nine per team (including each teams top draft pick from the 2018 draft).  The insert cards are all serially numbered and include parallels of the base cards, GEM and GEM BLACK cards (the latter are only for the top draft picks).  The "special" insert cards include three types of autograph cards and two types of memorabilia cards.

- It's the 85th Anniversary of the founding of the Yomiuri Giants this year but I was not aware that anyone was commemorating this until Epoch announced a "Giants 85th Anniversary" ultra high end set that will be released on October 26th.  Boxes of this set retail for 16,200 yen (~$151) and feature six cards - three regular, one parallel and two autographed.  The base set has 36 cards - all of which are OB Giants.  The big names in the set are probably Shigeo Nagashima and Isao Harimoto.  Neither Sadaharu Oh nor Hideki Matsui are included (which is kind of a surprise since I didn't think there had ever been an OB set that Matsui hadn't shown up in).  There are three different types of autographed cards available.