Hello 2022!

I wanted to do a quick post about the first 2022 set that's been announced but I need to talk just a little more about 2021 sets first.  I have good news and bad news.  The bad news is it really doesn't look like Calbee's going to be doing a Samurai Japan set this year.  In retrospect I suppose that it shouldn't be a surprise - in past years Calbee's Samurai Japan sets have been released in November/December and covered the Samurai Japan roster(s) for events from July of the previous year to June of the current year.  For example, the set released in November of 2016 had cards for players on the Premier 12 team from November of 2015 and the friendlies against Taiwan in March of 2016.  Since the Olympics this year were in August, they wouldn't be in a set from this year.  Hopefully Calbee will still have the rights to do a Samurai Japan set NEXT year which would include the Olympic team as well as whoever plays in the recently announced friendlies against Taiwan next March.  On the downside it won't include anyone who goes to MLB next season so don't expect a card of Seiya Suzuki.

The good news is that there ARE cards of an Olympic baseball team this year - the Korean team!  SCC issued their second set of the season earlier this month called KBO Golden Premium.  The base set contains 212 cards which includes a 22 card Korean National Team subset.  The remaining 190 cards are split between 100 "rare" cards, 45 "etching" cards and 45 "holo" cards - I assume it all works out to 19 cards per team but I don't know that for sure.  It looks like 180 of the 190 players in the set have an autographed card and there are also jersey and/or patch cards.  Boxes can be found on GMarket for between $60 and $80 and are guaranteed to include one autograph and one jersey or patch card.  Dan of Korean Cardboard has details along with promo images in this tweet.  As far as I know, these are the first cards EVER for a Korean Olympic Baseball Team and only the second Korean National Team cards ever produced by a Korean company (and first since the 1999 Teleca Premium "Korea Dream Team" insert set).

And finally, the first announced baseball card set for 2022 is BBM's annual ultra high-end Glory set, due out in late December (but with a "cover date" of 2022).  The details of the set seem similar to those of last year's set.  Each six card box retails for 18,000 yen or $160-ish and is guaranteed to include "two or more premium inserts including one or more autographs".  The base set has 36 cards of active players - I'm assuming six cards per team but I don't know that for sure.  There's a parallel version of some sort for each base card.  There are two insert sets - "MIYABI" which has 36 cards (I assume the same 36 players as the base set) and "Glorious 3D" which has 12.  The "MIYABI" cards are numbered to 50 (and there's a parallel version with a smaller print run) while the "Glorious 3D" cards are numbered to 25.  There are a wide variety of memorabilia cards including jersey, "super patch" and "grip end".  There are also memorabilia cards featuring jersey swatches from two, three or four players.