More Epoch One Cards

I mentioned the other day that the package I got from Ryan included a bunch of Epoch One cards.  He had picked up ten more of them after the Carter Stewart card.

If you're not familiar with Epoch One they are essentially NPB's answer to Topps Now.  The cards are made available online for a limited time (3 days) and they only print up as many as are ordered.  Cards are 500 yen (a little less than $5) each including shipping.  Currently Epoch is only doing these cards for nine of the twelve NPB teams - everyone except the Baystars, the Buffaloes and the Eagles.

I really like these cards a lot and Ryan has been amazing about ordering ones that I want.  In fact there's already another six that he's ordered for me or received since he shipped this box to me!  And that doesn't even include the Kodai Senga no-hitter card I assume they'll be offering shortly.

The ones he got me fall into three categories.   The first is cards featuring games that I actually attended.  Considering that nine of the ten NPB games I attended involved at least one team that there were Epoch One cards issued for I was very disappointed that there were only three issued for games I went to.  Even more disappointing is that they were all for the Tigers!  The cards were of Haruto Takahashi getting his first win in over a year against the Giants on May 30th at Koshien, Kenya Nagasaka hitting his first career home run against the Carp in Hiroshima on June 1st and Hiroya Shimamoto getting his first career save against the Marines in Chiba on June 6th.

#251/HT-036

#259/HT-037

#287/HT-039

The second category is cards showing alternate uniforms, in case I ever get around to updating my uniform posts:

#305/CM-030

#313/YG-048

#345/NF-034

#401/SL-049

#458/CM-054

Since Takeya Nakamura's card celebrates his 400th home run, I kinda wish they'd jimmied the numbers to make his card #400 instead of #401.

Shingo Usami was traded from the Giants to the Fighters on June 29th.  This card is the first showing him in a Nippon-Ham uniform and commemorates his first hit (or hits) with the new team.

The final category is cards with photos I like:

#440/CD-031

#461/SL-053

I really like the Akiyama photo but it would be more impressive if you could see the ball as well.  There's no way to know from the picture if he actually caught the ball.  (Spoiler alert - he did.)

The print runs on these cards go from a low of 25 for the Nagasaka card to a high of 83 for the Nakamura card.  (The Akiyama and Laird cards each had print runs of 26.)  I'm planning on at some point generating a list of all the Epoch One cards from both this year and last with their print runs although it's unlikely that I'm going to get to this anytime soon.