Hawks Team Issued Cards

I thought I'd do a quick post on some Hawks team issued cards I picked up recently.  I've always said that the team issued cards are one of the least understood parts of Japanese baseball cards and these new cards just continue to contribute to the confusion.

For starters, I have cards from what appear to be three different sets from 2006.  Let's start with this card of Nagisa Arakaki which actually has a copyright date of 2005 on it but has his complete stats for 2005 on it as well:

I mean, maybe I should call it a 2005 set because of the copyright but since it has the complete 2005 stats, I think of it as a 2006 set.

Here's four cards from a different set:

I really like the "rock-paper-scissors" symbols on these, kind of shoutout to old menko cards.  Here's the back of Saitoh's card where you can again see the player's 2005 stats, making it a 2006 set:

And then here's a card from a possible third 2006 set that includes some sort of ad for the TV broadcasts for the Hawks.  Again the back has the player's 2005 stats:

This next card mercifully has the year on the front of it:

Kind of interesting that the back has Oh's stats from his playing days with the Giants rather than his managerial record with the Hawks:

Finally I've got three cards from either one or two sets that I can't narrow down the year of.  These pretty much could be from any year between 2005 and 2011 as Wada left for the Orioles in 2012.  Here's the fronts of all three cards:

I kind of think the Mahara card is from a different set than the Arakaki and Wada cards, both because the box at the bottom has a different color and no copyright line at the bottom of the photo.  The backs are a little different as well:

The cards are similar enough that I would expect that they'd be from the same year, whatever year that is.