2024 Topps Now NPB

Topps started doing Topps Now cards for NPB last season.  The cards cost 1243 yen apiece and were on sale for a week at a time.  That 1243 yen did not include shipping - you should expect to fork out an addition 550 yen for that.  And that's only domestic shipping - Topps will not send these cards overseas.

Given that the cards from Epoch's version of Topps Now - Epoch One - only cost 500 yen (including shipping), I have no idea why anyone would spend three times that amount for these cards.  (Oh, wait, I forgot - Topps offers the possibility of random serially numbered parallels.)  As far as I can tell, Topps has not published the print runs for any of these cards so I don't have any idea how popular they are.  (They are back for 2024 although they're now 1485 yen apiece - Epoch One cards are still only 500 yen, the same price that they've been since 2018.)

When Topps announced these last year, I decided that I wanted to get one, and only one, as an example.  I asked Ryan to pick up the one for Natsuki Takeuchi's debut with the Lions:

2024 Topps Now #6

I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised that the back of the card had a little more effort than what I'm used to from Topps' NPB cards:

Not only is there some actual text, but it's bilingual!

I was intending to get any more of these but I discovered that Topps had issued a card for Itsuki Murabayashi's performance for the Eagles in the game against the Buffaloes that I witnessed in Osaka on May 17th - and, more importantly, Epoch had not.  I didn't realize the card existed until after Topps was no longer selling it but I eventually found a copy of it on Yahoo! Japan Auctions.  I think it was around 800 yen so cheaper than from Topps - I assume the seller bought several and got a volume discount.

2024 Topps Now #31

The interesting thing about the back is that they expanded the Japanese text and did away with the English text:

The Google translation of the text is something like "In the top of the ninth inning, with the bases loaded and one out, Itsuki Murabayashi came up to bat and hot a game-winning hit to left field.  The team was tied in the eighth inning, but he quickly showed his determination to score back.  Hefulfilled his role as the second batter and contributed to the team's 5-3 victory.  In his hero interview that day, he commented, 'I became a bench player with the mindset that if we were going to score, we would score.' which excited the fans."

The text under the date simply says "Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles vs. Orix Buffaloes"

I got curious about how long Topps kept up with the bilingual backs.  As far as I can tell, card #27 was the last one with English on the back.