- We'll start with the one reasonably priced set. BBM is releasing their annual Fusion set which is essentially the third and final installment of their flagship set in late November. The set is the usual four-headed monster that it is every year. There'll be 99 of the misleading labeled "Record Hall Of Fame" cards which will mostly feature non-Hall Of Fame players. Instead what this is is basically a review of the past regular season with a card or two commemorating a particular achievement that gets matched with a card or two commemorating a somewhat related event in the past. For example it wouldn't surprise me to see a card for Shuta Ishikawa's no-hitter matched with a card for Kodai Senga's no-hitter in 2019. In addition there will be 21 "1st Version Update" cards featuring players who for whatever reason weren't included in either the 1st Version set or the similarly named subset from the 2nd Version set and 24 "Title Holder" cards featuring the statistical leaders for each league in 12 categories. Those three subsets alone account for 144 cards but in addition there are an unspecified number of short printed "Ceremonial First Pitch" cards. There's also the usual two non-premium insert sets - "Great Records" (24 cards featuring two individuals from each team reaching some milestone) and "Legendary Players" (12 cards featuring an OB player from each team) along with two premium insert sets - "Treasure" (12 cards featuring an OB player from each team) and "Esperanza" (24 cards featuring two active players from each team). The premium inserts are serially numbered but I don't know the print runs. There are also a plethora of autographed cards available including ones for the recently deceased Shigeru Sugishita. (BBM's promotional site for the set says something about the cards having sticker autographs signed "during his lifetime". I'm glad they cleared that up because I was wondering if he'd signed via Ouija board.)
- BBM is putting out "Glory", their annual ultra high end set, in late November as well. Boxes of this will retail for 24,200 yen (~$160) and will contain six cards. The base set will contain 36 cards (three players per team I assume) which all have multiple serially numbered parallels. There are two serially numbered insert sets - "Miyabi" (36 cards serially numbered to 50 with a parallel version) and "Glorious 3D" (12 cards serially numbered to 25). There are a plethora of autograph and memorabilia cards. The memorabilia cards include both patch cards and bat knob cards.
- Epoch is releasing another of their combination active/OB "Stars & Legends" team sets and this time it's for the Giants. The set is officially known as the "Giants Stars & Legends with Memorabilia" and four card boxes of it will retail for 22,000 yen (about $145). The base set will contain 44 cards and there are five insert sets - "Decomori Signature (Gold) (6 cards #'d to 25), "Decomori Signature (Green) (6 cards #'d to 5), "Decomori Signature (Hologram) (6 cards that are 1-of-1), "Gem" (7 cards, not sure of the serial numbering) and "Black Gem" (7 cards #'d to 5) - all of which are serially numbered. There are four types of autographed cards - "Authentic" (28 players), "Legendary" (28 players), "1 of 1" (27 players) and "Baseball" (7 players) - and six different varieties of player used bat cards - Core, Grip A, Grip B, Barrel, Knob A, Knob B. There are ten of each bat card available. The set will be out on November 18th.
- November 18th is also the date that Epoch will be releasing their annual "Pacific League Premier Edition" set. Boxes of this set will retail for 17,600 yen (about $118) and contain six cards - three base set cards, an insert card and two "Special Insert" cards. The base set contains 54 cards - nine players from each team and there's only one insert set, a 24 card "Pacific League Superstars" set (which I think has two parallel versions available). All the "Special Insert" cards are serially numbered although I don't know the counts. There's 18 "Gem" cards, 54 "Authentic" autograph cards, 54 "Holospectra" autograph cards (not sure if those are real autographs or facsimile), 15 "Uniform Autograph" cards (which I assume have both an autograph and a uniform piece), 15 "Uniform" cards, 15 "Patch" cards and 15 "Letter" cards.
- A week after those two sets come out, Epoch is releasing their latest collaboration with the OB Club called "Career Achievement 2023". You'll be forgiven if you thought this set already came out this year - Epoch's 2022 edition of this set got delayed until March of this year. Each 18,150 yen box (around $122) contains six cards although two of them are autographed cards. The base set has 54 cards and there's a Hologram parallel of each card. There's apparently six possible autograph cards - "Authentic" (52 cards), "Tribute To The Past" (19 cards), "Baseball Greats" (16 cards), "Combo" (3 cards), "Baseball Autographs (White)" (24 cards) and "Baseball Autographs (Black)" (12 1-of-1 cards).
- Dan Skrezyna of Korean Cardboard tweeted out something earlier this week about a new retired player set for the KBO. The SCC KBO Legend set has already been released and boxes retail for W220,000 (about $164). Each box contains one "encased" card (although it's not clear if this is always an autographed card) and a pack of five cards. The base set contains 71 cards and each base set card has three serially numbered parallel versions - "Base Blue" (#'d to 60), "National Treasure Silver" (#'d to 10) and "National Treasure Gold" (#'d to 5). There's a 39 card insert set called "Retro" and I think each of those cards is serially numbered to 27. Each of the 71 players in the set has six different autographed cards - "Base Autograph Bronze", "Base Autograph Silver" (#'d to 10), "Base Autograph Gold" (#'d to 5), "Base Autograph Platinum" (1-of-1), "Moment Autograph Silver" (#'d to 10) and "Moment Autograph Gold" (#'d to 5). Additionally 29 players also have "Pine Tree" autographed cards that are serially numbered to 5. Dan has put the checklist for the set up at the Trading Card Database.
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