Calbee Cards From Mandarake

I recently placed an order for a bunch of old Calbee cards from Mandarake, a chain of antique toy stores in Japan that ships to the US, and the cards showed up yesterday.  My selection criteria for the cards was simply if I liked the photo on it.  I thought I'd do a quick post to show off the cards I got.  So in chronological order...

I've been wanting this card of Sadaharu Oh ever since I saw Sean post about it:

1974/75 Calbee #405

By the way, that mirror was under the stands at Korakuen Stadium - I think it was between the clubhouse and the tunnel to the dugout.  It can now be found in the Hall Of Fame.  I didn't take a picture of it during either of my visits there but there's a virtual tour of the Hall Of Fame available on-line so I grabbed a screen shot of it from there:

This card shows Makoto Matsubara coming home after hitting a pinch hit two run home run to put the Central League ahead 4-3 in Game 2 of the All Star Games on July 20th, 1975.  Matsubara was the game MVP.  That's Shigeo Nagashima behind him:

1975/76/77 Calbee #26

Here's a card of Jinten Haku from the pink border series of the 1975/76/77 Calbee set.  Haku is from Korea and his real name is Baek In-Chun.  He spent 19 seasons in NPB before joining the KBO when it started up in 1982.  He hit .412 with 19 home runs in 71 games as player-manager of the MBC Blue Dragons that year - he's the only .400 hitter in KBO history:

1975/76/77 Calbee #349

I picked up three cards that show scenes from the 1976 Nippon Series in which the Hankyu Braves defeated the Yomiuri Giants in seven games.  The first card shows Giants outfielder Isao Shibata leading off first at Korakuen Stadium.  That's Bobby Marcano playing second for the Braves and I'm pretty sure that's Hideji Katoh playing first:

1975/76/77 Calbee #1265

It's funny - Mandarake actually misidentified this card being Kenji Awaguchi instead of Shibata.  They misread the number on the back as "1263" rather than "1265".  To be honest, I can see how they could have made the mistake:

Speaking of Marcano, this card shows him doing what I think is a post game interview.  Since he's in a home uniform, I'm assuming it's from one of the games played in Nishinomiya - maybe Game 3 since he hit a home run in that game.  The gentleman to the left of Marcano is Roberto Barbon, who had played for Hankyu in the late 50's/early 60's and became an interpreter for the team when Barbon joined:

1975/76/77 Calbee #1280

This last card shows Bernie Williams rounding third after homering in Game Six of the Series at Korakuen Stadium.  That's coach Akira Ishii (#72) and Braves starting pitcher Takashi Yamaguchi (#14) cheering him on (not sure who the guy in the jacket is):

1975/76/77 Calbee #1288

This is a 1981 card shows Yohohama Taiyo Whales shortstop Daisuke Yamashita leaping to avoid the sliding Awaguchi:

1981 Calbee #334

I picked up several cards from the 1983 Calbee set.  Here's Fighters catcher Tatsuo Ohmiya:

1983 Calbee #259

Kenichi Yazawa high-fiving Yasunori Ohshima:

1983 Calbee #388

Yutaka Fukumoto tracks down a fly ball:

1983 Calbee #395

Takuji Ohta getting a stuffed animal after homering:

1983 Calbee #592

I've got a couple 1987 Calbee cards of Bob Horner already but this one intrigued me.  I'm not entirely sure what the occasion was but I think it may have been his first game with the Swallows:

1987 Calbee #111

Lotte's Norifumi Nishimura doing some light weight training:

1991 Calbee #26

The first Calbee cards I ever got were from the 1992 set so it's a bit odd that I only have nine of them.  I decided to pick up two more:

1992 Calbee #92

1992 Calbee #101

Mandarake's prices are still amazingly cheap.  The most expensive card of all of these was the Oh mirror card which was only 400 yen.  The Williams, Akiyama and Nishimura cards were 300 yen apiece; the Fukumoto, Hasegawa, Ohmiya, Yazawa and Yamashita cards were 200 yen each; the Matsubara, Marcano and Haku cards were 150 yen each and the Shibata, Horner and Ohta cards were only 100 yen each.  The subtotal was 3050 yen.  DHL shipping was 2060 yen so the total was 5110 yen which worked out to only $46.86.  So the average price for each card, including shipping, was a little over $3.  Not too shabby!