- This Friday will see the release of Topps' third NPB product of 2026 - NPB Finest. Boxes containing 15 packs of four cards will retail for 9900 yen (~$63) and will be released on November 13th. As usual, the base set contains 216 cards which breaks down to the usual 18 cards per team. Those 18 cards will contain cards for the team's manager and top three 2025 draft picks (also as usual). There are four insert sets - "Arrival", "1994 Finest Baseball", "Power Zone" and "Finest Chants". "Arrival" and "Finest Chants" have 24 cards each while the other two have 28 - each set has two active players per team but the 28 card sets have four "Legend" players each. According to the checklist for the set, there are a ton of autographed cards available. Looks like ten players for each team (except the Giants who have none as usual) along with a bunch of NPB Legends. The Legends include a number of current MLB players like Shohei Ohtani, Masataka Yoshida, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Yu Darvish, Yuki Matsui, Roki Sasaki, Kodai Senga, Munetaka Murakami and Kazuma Okamoto along with Ichiro, Sadaharu Oh, Hideo Nomo, Yutaka Entatsu and Rich Gossage. There are relics for a number of active NPB players although they surprisingly are not evenly split between the teams or even have all 12 teams represented. There are also relics for Ichiro and Sadaharu Oh. I should mention that while I frequently point out that Topps doesn't bother attempting to keep their sets up to date, they did replace Shinnosuke Abe as Giants manager with interim manager Hideki Hashigami in this set. On the other hand, Hajime Miki still has a card as Eagles manager (he was let go in mid-June) and there's no card of Yuudai Yamamoto with the Hawks (he was traded to them in May) although at least there's no card of him still with the Baystars. I do not know if Topps will be doing an NPB Chrome set this year as I have not seen anything about it. If they don't, it'll be the first time in the six years Topps has been doing NPB cards that they did not. It is possible that set won't be released until 2027 - their first Chrome set for 2021 wasn't released until 2022 (although in fairness, Topps didn't get their NPB license until October of 2021).
- Epoch is releasing another of their "ultra high-end" combination active/OB player "Stars & Legends" team sets on November 28th. Boxes for the Marines set will retail for 18,700 yen (about $120) and contain just four cards. The base set will have at least 44 cards, all of which are serially numbered. The set also has the usual three six card "Decomori Signature" insert sets ("Gold", "Green" and "Hologram") along with a six card "GEM" special insert set and a six card "BLACK GEM" special insert set. There are also six different varieties of autographed cards - "Authentic" (one for each player in the base set which, again, there are at least 44), "Star" (5 cards), "Rookie" (7 cards), "Legendary" (at least 12 cards), "Baseball" (20 cards) and "Combo" (2 cards).
- BBM's "ultra high-end" "Glory" set will be out on November 30th. Boxes will contain just six cards and retail for 28,600 yen or about $180. There are 36 cards (three active players from each NPB team) in the base set, each of which has a parallel. I think the base cards are /2000 but I don't know what the parallels are. There are two possible inserts - "MIYABI" (36 cards, each /50 with an even more limited parallel) and "Glorious 3D" (12 cards, each /25). The big attraction is, of course, the memorabilia and autographed cards. The memorabilia cards include "super patch" cards as well as combo and triple ones.
- BBM's other "ultra high-end" set is a multi-sport set called "Crown" which will be released at the end of December. It's not quite as expensive as "Glory" as a six card box will "only" be 27,500 yen (around $174). All the cards in the set are serially numbered but I don't know what any of them are numbered to. The base set has 48 cards. There are four insert sets although two of them - "Refinement" and "Jet" - could be considered parallels of the base cards as there are 48 cards in each of those sets. The "Refinement" cards are made with "Japanese paper" while the "Jet" cards are made with "special jet-black paper". The other two insert sets are "Foil Autumn" (23 cards on "hologram paper") and "Sparkling" (12 3D cards). And, of course, there are tons of autographed cards although no memorabilia cards. Each box is guaranteed to include at least one autographed card.
- On the more reasonably priced side of things, for the third year in a row, BBM is releasing a box set for the Lions that highlights the player's "fashions" - specifically a couple alternate uniforms the team wore this year as well as some street clothes worn for a team event. "Lions Parade Black & Blue" sets will hit the shelves on December 2 and will retail for 6,600 yen or roughly $42. Each box contains 61 cards - a 60 card base set plus one "special" insert card. The base set is split into three subsets - "Dress-up Style" (13 cards featuring players in street clothes from a "blue denim" fashion event in May), "Lions Black Mode" (23 cards featuring players in their "Lions Black Mode Uniform" which was worn during home interleague games) and "Aofes 2026" (24 cards featuring players in their blue alternate uniforms from home games in August). The "special" insert card could be a foil autographed card, a "cheki print" card or one of four different autographed cards (including one with a player illustration from the "Peko-chan Milky Mother's Day" event rather than a photo). Boxes will also contain one "special pin badge" featuring either "Peko-chan" (the "girl with pigtails" mascot for the Fujiya candy company) or a player illustration.
- Also for the third year in a row, Calbee is issuing baseball cards during the off-season that are tied into the "Pro Yakyu Spirits A" mobile game (but for the first time, I'm not getting caught by surprise by it). The set will contain 24 cards (two per team) and there are "kira" parallels available. The checklist is already out and bags of chips with one card packs will officially be in stores on December 7th although it would not be a shock if they were available a little earlier than that. It also wouldn't be a shock if Calbee issued yet another set like this in late January/early February. I just wish I understood why Calbee is doing sets like this in the off season rather than publish a third series of their regular cards.
- BBM has announced their first set for 2027 and I'm not exactly sure what to make of it. It's called "Baseball Card Encyclopedia Edition" and is apparently some sort of tie-in to an NHK TV show called "Kyujien". The text of the ad says that BBM has "picked out players who are experts in 9 themes, including opposite-field hitting and side-arm pitching". The base set will contain 81 cards split into three as yet unnumbered subsets - "regular", "IKIJIBIKI" and "Editorial Department". There will also be two nine card insert sets called (I think) "Symbolic" and "Essence" and autographed cards (including combo ones). Some of the photos on the cards will come from old footage from the show. The ad says that the set will have both OB and active players but, so far, the list of players are only retired ones (including deceased ones) such as Katsuya Nomura, Shigeo Nagashima, Choji Murata, Masa Yamamoto, Koji Uehara, Masumi Kuwata and Hisashi Iwakuma. The set will be released in early February.
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