News From Calbee

If you're like me and you mark each change of seasons* with the expectation of a new release of Calbee baseball cards, you've probably been wondering where the announcement of this year's Series Two set has been.  Typically the set gets released in late June, just as spring is giving way to summer, but there's been no announcement of this year's edition yet.

*Well, each change except fall becoming winter in December anyway

I was fully expecting the announcement to come while I was on vacation but it did not.  I finally decided to reach out and use the company's inquiry webpage to ask about it.  (I have this mental block sometimes where I view the card companies as these cosmic phenomenon whose intricacies are beyond the ken of mortal men and it doesn't occur to me that I can actually at least try to ask them questions.)  Anyway, I was somewhat stunned that I got a reply back from Calbee overnight (well, overnight for me).  

Here's what they said:

Thank you for your inquiry about Pro Baseball Chips 2023 Vol.2.

Release of the second edition will be later than usual this year because the popularity of baseball is increasing due to the influence of world baseball tournaments, etc., and sales of the first edition continue to exceed production capacity.

It will be sold in limited quantities on August 21st and October 9th.

I'm a bit stumped by this reply.  It looks like what they're saying is that baseball has become so popular due to the WBC that they're selling Series One as fast as they can produce it, so they're going to delay Series Two for two months.

via GIPHY

I'm assuming that the two release dates correspond to it being released to the hobby on August 21st and in stores on October 9th but that's just a guess.

I did ask a follow up question about what this meant for Series Three which typically comes out in Sepember (when summer turns into fall).  I specifically asked if Series Three would be released in November or December or if there would only be two Series this year.  Here's their reply:

Thank you for your reply.

The sales details of the third edition have not been decided at this time.

We are very sorry not to answer your inquiry.

The last time something like this happened was 2017 when Calbee was forced to cut back production due to the Hokkaido potato crop having been disrupted by a typhoon in 2016.  Series Two wasn't released until September of that year and Series Three was canceled altogether.  One thing that has me a little more optimistic about there being a Series Three this year though is that in 2017 Calbee did release a Samurai Japan baseball card set in November,  Maybe since they don't have the Samurai Japan license anymore they'll release Series Three instead in November of this year.  We'll have to wait and see.

By the way, I do want to give credit to Sean for being the first to notice that Calbee's Series releases corresponded to the changing of the seasons.  I had never noticed it until he mentioned it.