I did a post last summer about a set of 12 promo cards for the 2007 BBM 1st Version set issued with Shukan (Weekly) Baseball. Each card featured a different photo than the corresponding card in the 1st Version set and was labeled "2007 Opening Game Weekly Baseball".
Shortly after doing that post I had discovered that BBM had done something similar in 2006 although it was 24 cards in all. The first 12 cards were the top draft picks for each team from the previous fall's draft (although I don't quite know how they selected players because that draft had two separate phases - one for high school players and the other for college/industrial league players) while the other 12 were for established players. I had found an auction on Yahoo! Japan Auctions for the latter 12 cards and asked Ryan to pick them up for me. The cards were in the box he sent me last month.
The fronts of the promo cards have a yellow-ish border instead of the white of the original cards and have a "Weekly Baseball" label on the bottom. The backs are identical and have the same card numbers. Here's all 12 cards alongside their original versions:
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| #20 |
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| #53 |
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| #75 |
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| #125 |
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| #159 |
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| #182 |
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| #242 |
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| #274 |
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| #294 |
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| #351 |
 |
| #366 |
 |
| #400 |
It probably doesn't mean anything but I find it interesting that Norichika Aoki and Hiroki Kuroda are the only players to appear in both the 2006 and 2007 promo sets.
As I said, the backs of the promo cards are identical to the original cards. If I didn't tell you the promo card was on the right here, I don't think you'd be able to tell:
I'd love to track down the other 12 cards but they seem to be pretty rare. I don't know if BBM did anything similar for any other years.
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