My Oldest Sports Card

Earlier this week, Comatoad On Cards asked the question "What's Your Oldest Sports Card?"  I don't think he meant is as a "blog bat around" but it sounded like a good one to me so I'm going to take it and run with it.

There's a group of cards that I'm pretty sure are the oldest Japanese cards I have that show individual players (as opposed to just generic players).  There are six bromide cards I have that probably date from 1946 or early 1947.  These six cards represent four different sets but only one of those sets is cataloged.

These two cards - Seizo Furukawa of the Chubu Nippon Dragons and Kazuto Tsuruoka of the Kinki Great Ring (who went by Kazuto Yamamoto at the time) - are from the set Gary Engel has cataloged as "JBR 73 - 1947 Marutoku B&W Bromides".  As the name implies, Engel dates this set to 1947 but he states in his description for the set that "Players are featured in their 1946 uniforms...so it is assumed that this is a pre-season 1947 set, making it the earliest checklisted postwar baseball card set."

Like the JBR 73 cards, the other four cards I have (from three separate, uncataloged sets) feature players in their 1946 uniforms.  This is clear because the two teams represented - Goldstar and Pacific - only went by those names in 1946 (Goldstar became the Daiei Stars who eventually merged with the Mainichi Orions and are now the Chiba Lotte Marines while Pacific became the Shochiku Robins who merged with the Taiyo Whales who are now the Yokohama DeNA Baystars).  

Takashi Eda

Isao Tsuji

Michio Nishizawa

Victor Starffin

Half of these players are Hall Of Famers (Tsuruoka, Nishizawa and Starffin).  The photo on the Starffin card is identical to his JBR 73 card but the text is different and the card is larger than the JBR 73 cards.

These may not be the oldest Japanese cards in my collection however.  I have a small uncut menko sheet depicting generic college baseball players that resembles some cards shown in "Sayonara Home Run!: The Art Of The Japanese Baseball Card" that date from the 1920's:

But the actual oldest cards in my collection are two of the few American cards that I've kept.  The first is a T205 card of Arlie Latham.  I got interested in Latham when I read Bill James' "The Historical Baseball Abstract" because his name seemed to keep popping up.  The 19th century gave us some great nicknames for baseball players (none better of course than Bob "Death To Flying Things" Ferguson).  Latham's reputation as a jokester earned him the nickname "The Freshest Man On Earth".  He played in the majors from about 1880 to 1899 and then spent time in the minors as both a manager and umpire from 1900 to 1908.  In 1909 he returned to the majors as a coach for John McGraw's Giants - the first person to ever be a full time coach for a team.  He actually played in a couple games that season at age 49 and stole a base - becoming the oldest major league player to ever do so.  That record still stands.  He later lived in England and taught King George V about baseball.  Even later he worked in the press box at the Polo Grounds and Yankee Stadium.  He passed away in 1952 at age 92.  It's alway struck me as amazing that a guy who played baseball with the early greats like George Wright and Cap Anson lived to see Mickey Mantle play.

The second is a T206 card of Jack Dunn, the owner and manager of the International Leagues' Baltimore Orioles.  Dunn's biggest claim to fame was discovering a local kid at a reformatory school in Baltimore in 1914 and signing him to a contract.  The player was so raw when it came to anything other than baseball that he got dubbed "Dunnie's Babe" by the other players.  Dunn had a problem that season, however, as the Federal League had placed a rival team in Baltimore literally across the street from his ballpark, causing him to lose enough money that he was forced to sell a bunch of players to major league teams, including selling his "Babe" to the Boston Red Sox where he became a star (and eventually got sold again to the Yankees but that's a different story).  Dunn ended up moving the Orioles to Richmond, Virginia until the Federal League folded.  After returning to Baltimore he built a powerhouse team, winning seven straight International League pennants from 1919 to 1925.  Another Maryland native that he discovered, Lefty Grove, pitched for five of those pennant winning teams.  Dunn passed away from a heart attack in 1928 but his family was involved with baseball in Baltimore for years afterwards.

A to Z Challenge

A week ago the Diamond King issued a challenge to bloggers to do a post featuring an A to Z list of their favorite players.  I decided to take a shot at this with NPB players and was able to get a list together although some letters were much more difficult than others - either there weren't many NPB players whose name started with that letter or there were several players I liked a lot with that letter.  What I probably should have done is picked a player whose name started with each hiragana character but I wasn't prepared to that much work yet.  Maybe later.

Anyway, here's my list.  I don't think anyone with a last name starting with "Q" or "X" has ever played in NPB or if they have, I don't have cards for them.

A - Koji Akiyama

1991 BBM Nippon Series #S58

B - Wladimir Balentien

2013 BBM Swallows #S61

C - Koji Chikamoto

2020 BBM Tigers #T58

D - Yu Darvish

2005 Konami Baseball Heroes New Black Edition #C05B051

E - Yutaka Enatsu

2003 BBM Fighters #107

F - Atsuya Furuta

1998 BBM Diamond Heroes "Hit Leader" #H1

G - Sosuke Genda

2017 BBM Fusion #067

H - Isao Harimoto

1967 Kabaya-Leaf #409

I - Atsunori Inaba

2019 Calbee Samurai Japan #SJ-01

J - Kenji Johjima

2001 Upper Deck #146

K - Hiromitsu Kadota

1985 Calbee #129

L - Lee Dae-Ho

2012 Calbee #024

M - Masato Morishita

2019 Panini USA Baseball Stars & Stripes Japanese Collegiate National Team #JC-MM

N - Takeya Nakamura

2019 Epoch One #401

O - Hiromitsu Ochiai

2011 BBM All Stars #A36

P - Roberto Petagine

1999 Calbee #230

R - Tuffy Rhodes

2001 BBM Nippon Series #S55

S - Hayato Sakamoto

2010 Georgia Coffee #002

T - Motonobu Tanishige

2005 Dragons Official Card

U - Seiichi Uchikawa

2014 Calbee #C-6

V - Dayan Viciedo

2016 Epoch Record Breakers #18

W - Tsutomu Wakamatsu

1977 Yamakatsu JY3

Y - Yuki Yanagita

2015 Calbee #ES-13

Z - Julio Zuleta

2006 BBM Hawks #H052

If I were to do this list again, it might not come out the same way.  Some of the players who I narrowly decided against include Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima, Shohei Ohtani, Ichiro Suzuki, Shogo Akiyama, Tetsuto Yamada, Yutaka Fukumoto, Hisashi Yamada, Masahiro Yamamoto, Kazuhiro Kiyohara, Kimiyasu Kudoh and Masahiro Tanaka.  

Blog Bat Around - My Projects VI - The Voyage Home

A couple years back I took part in a Blog Bat Around suggested by Night Owl Cards that had me do a post that listed all the various projects that I was working on.  I've done update posts for it around this time in both 2019 and 2020 so I thought I should go ahead and do another one - especially now that I'm almost done in-processing all those cards I got from Ryan.

Once again I've dropped any project from the list that I previously listed as complete.

1978 Yamakatsu JY6 set

I finally got the last card I needed for this set - Koichi Tabuchi - last fall from Larry Fuhrmann.  I don't know why I didn't ask Larry sooner.

2017 Topps Now WBC set

No change on this one - still need one of the Didi Gregorius cards. 

2009 Konami WBC Inserts

Between Ryan and a trade with Steve, I picked up three of the eight cards I still needed.  So making progress but it's ever so slow.

2017 Topps TBT WBC cards

No change - still need the Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa cards.  I thought I had a line on a Correa card about a month ago but it was on a zombie website that apparently isn't still active.

1994-2000 BBM flagship sets

This has gone better than I could have believed.  That trade with Steve netted me the final card I needed for 1998 and Ryan recently sent me the final cards I needed for 1994 and 2000, along with 12 of the 14 cards I needed for 1999.  Ryan also found me a bunch of 1996 cards so I'm down to needing just 18 cards to complete the set.  But the most amazing thing is how well I've done with the 1995 set.  A year ago at this time I needed around 300 cards.  But I bought a very large lot of them from someone on Ebay and Ryan has done an incredible job tracking cards down at reasonable prices - it certainly helps that he's trying to complete the set too.  And of course there's the seller in Taiwan that I got the super rare high numbered cards from along with some other cards from the set.  I now only need 14 cards to complete the 1995 set, although nine of those cards are short printed puzzle cards (including eight Hideki Matsui ones).  I am just 34 cards away from a complete run of BBM flagship sets from 1991 to the present (I'm taking into account the cards that Ryan has told me he's found for me but hasn't sent yet - there's 20 or so 1995 cards and one 1996 card so there's about 55 missing from what I have here at the house).

1999 Teleca Sets

No change here - still one card away from completing the 1999 Teleca regular set.

2000 Teleca "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set

Made some decent progress here.  Dan found me a handful of cards and that trade with Steve brought in a couple more.  I went from needing 24 cards to only needing 15 - so went from needing roughly half the set to needing just a third of it.

2001 BBM Tigers set

This one's done - Ryan found the last card I needed for this.

2004 BBM 1st Version 2003 Asian Championship insert set

Another completed one - I got one of the four cards I needed from Ryan last year and the other three in the box I just got from him.

1999 Teleca Premium Korean Dream Team insert set

No change here either - I still need three cards.

2000 Teleca set

Got two cards - both in trades with Steve - so I'm down to needing 42 cards, 15 of which are the "Rookie" insert cards.  Both of the cards I got from Steve were from that insert set.  

I did start a couple new projects although one of them is already nearly complete.

BBM Team sets

I decided I wanted to fill in the gaps in my BBM team sets - not with complete sets but with five or so cards from each set that I didn't already have cards from.  Basically I wanted the equivalent of having opened a pack for each set I didn't have any card from already.  Of course, once I went to make a want list I couldn't help but add cards of favorite players including rookie cards of big stars so it's been a little harder and more expensive that I had originally planned.  But again, Ryan's done an amazing job tracking stuff down for me so there's only about eight cards left out of the 150 to 200 that I originally had on the list.

SCM cards

I finally made up a list of the Sports Card Magazine insert cards I want to get.  There's around 50 from between 1997 and 2010 that I'm looking for.

2000 Upper Deck Ovation Rising Stars

Upper Deck's Ovation set from 2000 included 30 serially numbered "Rising Stars" cards featuring rookies or young stars.  I've got 18 of them now so there's only 12 more to get.  They aren't all that rare (their print runs were to 2000) but they're not all that common either.

2017 BBM Icons - Japan Pride printed autograph inserts

About a year ago Justin of Charm City Autographs opened a 2017 BBM Icons - Japan Pride set and sent me the insert card he got in it - a printed autograph card of Tomoyuki Sugano.  I really liked the card and I'd like to get all 18 of them.  They're not very common though so this is going to probably be very difficult.  I've added them to my Want List but Ryan and I haven't really discussed how much I want to spend on them so he hasn't been looking for them yet.

Shukan Baseball Season Memorial Cards

There was a six year stretch from 2011 to 2016 where BBM included two baseball cards in the special "Season Memorial" issue of Shukan (Weekly) Baseball.  Ryan sent me the two 2016 cards in the box I just got from him and he's already tracked down four more of them which means I'm halfway done with these already.

I want to take this moment to again thank everyone - Dan, Steve, Justin, Larry and especially Ryan - for helping me get the cards for all these projects.  

Blog Bat Around - My Projects Updated (again)

A couple of years ago I took part in a Blog Bat Around started by Night Owls Cards by doing a post in which I listed the various projects I was working on.  I did an update around this time last year so I decided to do another quick update now.  For simplicity's sake I've removed any projects that I had listed in the first post but completed by the second post.

1978 Yamakatsu JY6 set

Still need the Koichi Tabuchi card from this set.  I was hoping that Tabuchi's election to the Hall Of Fame might encourage some new listings on Yahoo! Japan Auctions but no luck so far.

2017 Topps Now WBC set

I actually was able to get two of three cards I needed from this set for high but not sky-high prices - around $30 each.  The final one (a Didi Gregorius card) has eluded me.  There's a seller listing it on Ebay for the insane "Buy-It-Now" price of $19,999.  Needless to say, I'm not spending that much on it - even if I had an extra 20 grand sitting around.  I've offered him $40 but he's declined.

2009 Konami WBC Inserts

Didn't make a lot of progress on this one.  Ryan found me one of the the "All Tournament Team" cards but I still need seven more plus one of the "Special" cards.

2003-06 BBM Rookie Edition sets

This one is done!  I was able to pick up most of the cards last year in Japan and Ryan just sent me the last one I needed.

2017 Topps TBT WBC cards

No change - still need the Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa cards.

1994-2000 BBM flagship sets

Between hitting card shops in Japan and having Ryan look for stuff for me I did really well here.  I completed the 1997 set and I'm down to needing just 2 cards for the 1994 set, 1 each for the 1998 and 2000 sets and 14 for the 1999 set.  I need about 50 for the 1996 which is not out of the realm of possibility.  I finally put together a want list for the 1995 set and I need something like 300 cards, some of which are rare short printed cards.  I don't think I'll ever seriously attempt to finish the 1995 set but I'm will probably make an attempt to get most of the regular,  non-short printed cards.  Just need to get that list transferred from TradingCardDB.com to my Want List.

1999 Teleca Sets

Still one card away from completing the 1999 Teleca regular set.

2000 Teleca "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set

Absolutely no change - still need 24 cards.

2001 BBM Tigers set

Ryan found five of the six cards I needed before I got to Japan last year but I've had absolutely no luck tracking down the final card.

2004 BBM 1st Version 2003 Asian Championship insert set

This is another project that I made a lot of progress on in Japan - I tracked down 12 of the 16 cards I needed.  Ryan found me another one so I only need three more.

1999 Teleca Premium Korean Dream Team insert set

This was a bit frustrating.  Last year at this time I thought I needed three cards.  Dan gave me one of them when I met up with him in Tokyo so I should have been down to two.  However I discovered from the checklist for the set on TradingCardDB.com that there's an unnumbered title card for the set that I hadn't know about.  So I still need three cards.

2000 Teleca set

No change - I still need 44 cards from this set.  

I haven't gotten really serious about adding any other projects.  I'd like to get the rest of the non-promo baseball SCM cards but I haven't made up a want list.  I'm just one card away from finishing the 2019 Epoch Giants 85th Anniversary set but that's because Dan gave me most of the set already.  I'd like to fill in the gaps of my BBM team sets collection with a handful of cards from each set I don't have cards from but I haven't really thought through the best way to do that (other than another trip to Japan).  I also kick around the idea of completing the four BBM "Historic Collection" sets from 2003 to 2006 ("Sluggers", "Golden Arms", "Glorious Stars" and "Record Makers") - the only ones that I don't have complete sets for.  I'm also interested in possibly getting more "Weekly Baseball" and "Baseball Magazine" cards.

Blog Bat Around - My Projects - Updated

Just about a year ago I took part in a Blog Bat Around started by Night Owl Cards about the various card projects I was attempting to complete.  I thought I'd do a quick update on how those projects are going plus any new ones I've added.

First up - how I'm doing on the projects I listed last year?

2000 Upper Deck Olympics Baseball Team

As I reported last year, this one was actually done a year ago but I didn't have the last cards in hand yet.  Ryan had found the last two cards I needed and sent them to me last May.

1978 Yamakatsu JY6 set

Still need the Koichi Tabuchi card from this set.

2017 Topps Now WBC set

I reduced the number of cards I need for this set from 12 to only 3 but I haven't seen the last three I need very often and when I do, the seller wants at least $50 for each of them.  This may take a while.

2009 Konami WBC Inserts

This is another area where Ryan helped me out.  I'm down to only needing one of the "Special" cards but I still need eight of the "All Tournament Team" cards.

2003-06 BBM Rookie Edition sets

Not only did I not make any progress on any of these sets but I've misplaced my want lists!  I need to regenerate them and I need to do it fairly soon for reasons I will get into momentarily.

2017 Topps TBT WBC cards

Still need the Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa cards from this set.

1994-2000 BBM flagship sets

I made a lot of progress on the 1994 BBM set, again with Ryan's help.  I needed 45 cards from the set this time last year but a couple Yahoo! Japan Auction buys and some card shop visits by Ryan has gotten the total down to only eight.  Seven of those eight are rare low-numbered Swallows cards however and the other one is Hiroki Kokubo's rookie card so it won't necessarily be cheap or easy to complete but it's doable.  I also picked up the most expensive card I had left from the 1998 set (Yoshinobu Takahashi's rookie card) so that's getting more doable as well.  I also picked up a handful of 1997 cards as well.

1999 Teleca Sets

I'm still one card away from completing the 1999 Teleca regular set but the Premium set is complete.  Dan found me three of the four cards I needed and I got the last one from Rob Fitts when I bought some other Korean cards from him.

2000 Teleca "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set

Surprisingly I made slow but steady progress on this set.  I got about seven cards from the set from various sources over the course of the year so I went from only having 15 cards to having 22.  Of course I still need 24 more cards but progress is progress.

Here's the new projects I added over the last year in no particular order:

2001 BBM Tigers set

2001 BBM Tigers #T55

After opening a box from this set a couple months ago I found that I was only six cards away from finishing it so I decided to go for it.  Ryan's already found five of them so it's almost done already.

2004 BBM 1st Version 2003 Asian Championship insert set

2004 BBM 1st Version "2003 Asian Championship" insert #AJ1

The 2004 BBM 1st Version set included an insert set for the Japanese National Team for the 2003 Asian Championship (which was a qualifier for the 2004 Olympics).  I'm a sucker for National Team sets and this is one of the few Japanese ones I don't have all the cards for.  I still need 16 of the 22 cards from the set so it'll take a while.

1999 Teleca Premium Korean Dream Team insert set

1999 Teleca Premium "Korean Dream Team" insert #D-13

Speaking of National Team sets...the 1999 Teleca Premium set included an insert set for the Korean National Team for the 1999 Asian Championship (at least I think it was for that tournament).  This is actually the only Korean National Team set that I'm aware of.  I'd had a couple cards from this set for a long time but I picked up most of the rest of the cards from a lot that Rob Fitts had up on Ebay.  I'm only three cards away from finishing the set.

2000 Teleca set

2000 Teleca #182

If you had told me a year ago that I'd only be 44 cards away from completing this set now I'd have told you you were crazy.  Last year at this time I only had 15 cards from this set.  But I bought a bunch of cards from the set from Rob Fitts in another Ebay lot and picked up another bunch of cards via a trade with a Marines fan named Takashi in Japan and now I have over 200!

I mentioned earlier that I needed to get my want lists together soon.  There's a reason for that - I am finally making another trip to Japan soon.  I'll be heading over in late May for a little over two weeks.  I'm hoping to catch a lot of baseball games and go to a lot of baseball card stores.  It'd be great if I could come back from the trip with some of these projects completed.  Of course, I'm sure I'll be finding new projects while I'm there!

Blog Bat Around - My Projects

Night Owl Cards started a Blog Bat Around a couple weeks ago that asked bloggers to write about their various card collecting projects.  I'm a bit late on this but I thought I jump in on it.

My main card collecting project is the constant acquisition of various new BBM, Calbee and Epoch sets but there's a number of other things that I'm actively working on (although "actively" is a relative term).  Here's the list in order of most likely to get completed to least likely:

2000 Upper Deck Olympics Baseball Team

2000 Upper Deck Olympic Games Japanese Team Cards #216

Back in 2000 Upper Deck released a 264 card set dedicated to the Japanese team for that summer's Olympics in Sydney.  This set included a 19 card subset for the baseball team which included current NPB stars like Daisuke Matsuzaka, So Taguchi, Yukio Tanaka, Norihiro Nakamura and Nobuhiko Matsunaka as well as some corporate league players who would later star in NPB like Norihiro Akahoshi, Toshiya Sugiuchi and Shunsuke Watanabe (but unfortunately not Shinnosuke Abe).  I've been working my way through this subset ever since I first discovered it existed thanks to a post by Ryan over five years ago.  Actually in fairness - Ryan's been working my way through the subset for me and it's kind of cheating for me to include it here because he's actually found the last two cards I needed - I just don't have them in hand yet.  Ryan found my cards while completing the entire 264 set for himself which is a pretty impressive feat.

1978 Yamakatsu JY6 set

1978 Yamakatsu JY6 Sadaharu Oh

I love the cards that Yamakatsu issued in the late 1970's.  One of the more approachable sets was a set issued in 1978 that Engel labels the "JY6" set.  This set has 42 cards in it and is the only set Yamakatsu did that where the cards are close to the standard 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch size - all the others are either smaller or much larger.  There's a good collection of stars in the set including Sachio Kinugasa, Koji Yamamoto, Hisashi Yamada, Yutaka Enatsu, Hiromitsu Kadota, Isao Harimoto and two cards of Sadaharu Oh.  I'm down to only needing one card from the set - Koichi Tabuchi.  I've seen it once on Yahoo! Japan Auctions but I (ok, Ryan) got outbid on it.  But I'm optimistic it can be found.

2017 Topps Now WBC set

2017 Topps Now WBC #W-46

I was disappointed that Topps never really did a set for last year's World Baseball Classic so I decided that I would collect the Topps Now cards that they issued - despite the fact that they're much more expensive than I'd like.  I did a pretty good job picking up the low hanging fruit of cheap-ish cards off of both Ebay and COMC but I'm down to 12 cards that I've only been seeing at $15 apiece and above.  It'll get done eventually but it'll take some time.

2009 Konami WBC Inserts

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC "All Tournament Team" #W09A002

2009 Konami Baseball Heroes WBC "Special" #W09S003

Back in 2009 Konami did an amazing set for the World Baseball Classic - a 253 card base set with two 12 card insert sets.  One insert set was for the All Tournament team and the other was simple labeled "Special" cards.  I had complete the base set a few years ago but I hadn't really planned on getting the inserts.  But the guy I used to buy cards from (including this set) had given me the Darvish and Ichiro "special" cards when I met up with him in Tokyo and I found a couple others for not terrible prices on Ebay so I decided to give it a shot.  I've got most of the "Special" cards (Ryan's got five of them waiting for me) but I still have most of the All Tournament team to get.

2003-06 BBM Rookie Edition sets

2003 BBM Rookie Edition #63

2004 BBM Rookie Edition #61

2005 BBM Rookie Edition #12

2006 BBM Rookie Edition #13

I have the complete Rookie Edition base sets from 2007 to the present but I'd like to finish off the first four editions.  I've used the checklists for the sets on the Trading Card Database to determine how many I need and it's not really that many - 24 cards for 2003, 12 for 2004, 15 for 2005 and 17 for 2006.  And I think I already have all the big names (Aoki from the 2004 set and Darvish from the 2005 set) - probably the biggest name I have left is Hideaki Wakui from the 2005 set.  What I need to do is get the list online and added to my Want List.

2017 Topps TBT WBC cards

2017 Topps "Throwback Thursday" #36

Last year Topps issued six "Throwback Thursday" cards on-line for the WBC.  Each card featured a player from the tournament in their nation's uniform.  The cards used the 1988 Topps baseball design.  I had decided to try to get all of these around the time I decided to get all the Topps Now cards.  Normally I probably wouldn't mention a project this small but I've been somewhat stymied after getting four cards.  Of the remaining two cards one of them (Alex Bregman) I only see for at least $20 on Ebay and I have yet to see the other card (Carlos Correa) anywhere.  So this one may take a while.

1994-2000 BBM flagship sets

1994 BBM #363

1998 BBM #72

I have the complete BBM "flagship" base sets from 1991 to 93 and from 2001 to the present.  I'd like to attempt to complete the other seven sets but some of these would be easier than others.  I'm reasonably close on a couple sets - 1994 (a recent pickup on Ebay has left me 45 cards away) and 1998 (roughly 50 although one of them is Yoshinobu Takahashi) - but I'm a bit further away on the others.  I need anywhere from 120 to 300 cards for the other five sets.  Everything other than the 1995 set is probably do-able - I need the puzzle cards and the Late Series card of Kevin Mitchell from 1995 which pushes the cost up quite a bit.  I haven't quite put together checklists for all the sets yet so I'm not organized enough on these yet to really make an effort on them.

1999 Teleca Sets

1999 Teleca #82

1999 Teleca Premium #14

Teleca issued three KBO sets in 1999 and 2000.  I had opened boxes for two of these sets - the 1999 regular set and the 1999 Premium set.  Through help from Dan, George and Justin, I'm down to just needing one card from the regular set and four cards from the Premium set.  These aren't cards that I'm likely to come by on Ebay or anywhere else so I'll probably need to continue to rely on the Three Amigos of KBO Cards to ever complete these sets.

2000 Teleca "'99 Korea Japan Super Games" insert set

2000 Teleca :'99 Korea Japan Super Games" #KJ42

I'd love to get the 2000 Teleca base set as well but I only have about 14 cards from it so that's just not going to happen.  The 2000 set also has a 46 card insert set for the 1999 Korea-Japan Super Games which features some Japanese players as well as Korean ones.  Thanks to Dan, George and Justin I now have 15 of these cards.  Again the only way I'm going to complete the set is to rely on the kindness of the three of them.