Another Suruga-ya Order

Last week I placed another order with the online store Suruga-ya.  I'd found some stuff I was interested in but I was balking at paying $20-ish for shipping for just a handful of cards.  But then I remembered that Jason had said something to me when I had done my last order that he'd be willing to split the shipping costs with me on my next order if we included some cards he wanted as well.  I got in contact with him to see if he still wanted to do that and he did.  He sent me a list of cards he wanted, I added to the order and we split the shipping cost.  Now granted $10 for eight cards in my case is still on the high side but it's better than $20.

I thought I'd do a quick rundown of what I got.  These first two cards were the only ones that were actually on my want list, a pair of BBM team set cards:

2008 BBM Dragons #D11

2004 BBM Tigers #T30

I was especially interested in getting the Irabu card as I've just recently become aware of how few cards he had during his two seasons with the Tigers in 2003-04.  He didn't appear in BBM's flagship set for either year, just their All Stars and Nippon Series sets for 2003 along with the Tigers box set(s) for winning the Central League pennant that year.  I think he only has one Calbee card during that stretch - a 2004 card celebrating him winning a monthly MVP award the previous year.

I decided to supplement my order with some Takeya Nakamura cards.  I don't try to get all the cards of any particular player but if I did, it would probably be for Nakamura.  I picked up five cards for him - three photo variants from 2017 Epoch sets along with two cards celebrating him winning a Best 9 award - 2009 BBM 1st Version and 2019 Konami Baseball Collection:

2017 Epoch Lions #24 Variant 2

2017 Epoch Pacific League #32 Variant 1

2017 Epoch Pacific League #32 Variant 2

2019 Konami Baseball Collection #2019C9-P-L060-00

2009 BBM 1st Version #BN05

The 2009 BBM card is shiny so it didn't scan very well.

In case you're interested, here's what all three versions of both 2017 Epoch Nakamura cards look like:

2017 Epoch Lions #24

2017 Epoch Pacific League #32

The last card I got was a Giants Winning Game card from 2012 that celebrates Hirokazu Sawamura pitching in over 200 innings.  It's got a "holo" finish on the front so it doesn't scan well either: