Latest Mandarake Mail Day

Recently I placed yet another order for vintage Calbee cards from Mandarake, the chain of antique toy stores in Japan that ships to the US and the cards showed up today.  As usual I'm astonished by how inexpensive these great cards are.  Here's what I got in this latest package:

I'm a sucker for vintage Tsutomo Wakamatsu cards as I think almost every order I've gotten from Mandarake has had a card of him in it.  I'm especially a sucker for Yakult Atoms cards so I had to pick this one from the 1973/74 set up.  It was 500 yen and Mandarake listed it as being in "below average condition".  It has a pencil mark on the back but other than that it looks in great shape for a 46 year old card.

1973/74 Calbee #306

I decided to pick up some vintage Hiromitsu Kadota cards since he's another favorite of mine.  For some reason I always find it amazing that someone who appeared in Calbee's first set in 1973 also appeared in BBM's first set in 1991 even though there's only an 18 year gap.  I should sit down sometime and figure out if there are any other players in both sets.

I ended up with four Kadota cards.  This first one is from the 1973/74 set and was also 500 yen.  Mandarake listed its condition as "average".

1973/74 Calbee #313

The next one is also from the 1973/74 set and was 300 yen.  Mandarake says "there are some problems" with its condition but other than some wear on the edges the card looks pretty good.  This is one the "Exciting Game Series" cards and shows Kadota batting in Game 5 of the 1973 Nippon Series on November 1, 1973.  That's Giants catcher Takashi Yoshida crouching behind him.

1973/74 Calbee #325

This next card is from the 1974/75 Calbee set and is similar enough to the last card that I almost didn't buy it.  But since it was only 100 yen I decided I couldn't resist it.  This is another card that Mandarake lists as "Below average condition" but again I don't see it. 

1974/75 Calbee #849

The back of this card appears to say that the photo is from a game on May 31st (1974 I assume) at Osaka Stadium but if that's the case, why is Kadota in an away uniform and the catcher in a home Taiheiyo Lions uniform?

The last Kadota card I got is from the 1975/76/77 "monster" (as Sean puts it) set.  I guess that technically it's a card of Toshiharu Ueda, manager of the Hankyu Braves, who is in the center of the photo.  Kadota is on the right side of the photo and Takeshi Koba, manager of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, is on the left.  Ueda and Koba were the opposing managers in the All Star games in 1976 and this photo is from All Star Game #3 played on July 20, 1976 at Osaka Stadium.  Mandarake listed the card's condition as "average" and priced it at only 100 yen.  It looks great to me.

1975/76/77 Calbee #865

I got a couple more cards from the "monster".  Here's a card showing Yutaka Fukumoto of Hankyu being congratulated by his teammates.  This card is in fantastic shape with very sharp corners but Mandarake listed its condition as "good" and priced it at 200 yen.

1975/76/77 Calbee #595

I was excited to find this next card.  Sean had written a post a while back about the last series of cards from the "monster" that included cards labeled as "77 Central Pacific Rival Player Series".  Each Rivals card showed two players - one Central League player and one Pacific League player - that had something in common.  Not only did I not have any of these cards, I didn't even know they existed until Sean's post.  I was able to pick up this one showing Kenichi Yazawa of the Dragons and Satoru Yoshioka of the Lions.  Mandarake listed the condition as "damaged" but again it looks great.  It was only 500 yen.  (Note - My scan cut off a little of the bottom of the card.)

1975/76/77 # 1412

I'm amused that despite Yoshioka appearing on the front of the card in Taiheiyo Club Lions uniform, the back of the card shows a Crown Lighter Lions flag.  The Lions changed their name in October of 1976.

The last two cards I got were both from the 1981 set.  Both of these cards were 100 yen each and have a condition of "common".  They both look fantastic.  The first is another card of Yutaka Fukumoto.  

1981 Calbee #77

The other card is of Makoto Shimada.

1981 Calbee #97

The subtotal for the nine cards was 2400 yen.  Shipping options are still limited from Japan so I ended up paying 1360 yen for DHL, about twice as much as I would have paid for SAL shipping under normal circumstances.  The total price then was 3760 yen which worked out to around $36.50.  That's just a little more than $4 per card which is pretty awesome for the cards involved.  And DHL shipping is amazingly fast - I placed this order Monday evening and the cards showed up today (Friday) at around 1 PM.