Young Lions Set

BBM listed a new Lions set on their website today. It's a 28 card box set that features 9 of the Lions "popular young players". Looks like there's three separate styles of cards in the set - an "expression" subset, a home uniform subset and an away uniform subset. Each player has a card in each of the subsets - that adds up to 27 cards. The 28th card is an insert card.

I suspect that if Yusei Kikuchi had signed with another team other than the Lions, there'd be a box set for that team instead.

Anyway, the set will be released in late March.

KuboTEN

I received the cards from my first order placed through KuboTEN today. The whole process was pretty easy, although a bit slow. I had won the auction in question back in December, but I waited until mid-January to actually get the cards shipped as I was waiting to see if there was anything else I wanted to get. So it looks like it took about 5 weeks to get the cards, which seems a little long to me, although the weather may have disrupted things somewhat. I'd be interested in knowing what others have experienced.

The cards themselves are gorgeous. I was able to get the remaining 5 "Combination" insert cards that I needed from the 2000 BBM 20th Century Best 9 set. Here's a couple of them (#'s T-03, T-12 & T-15):




So that leaves me with 10 regular cards and 4 "The Scene" insert cards to go to complete the set!

Card Of The Week February 21

For no reason other than I love old Yamakatsu cards, a 1977 Yamakatsu card of Masayuki Kakefu.

Japanese Winter Olympians

Since 2004, BBM has included a subset featuring people throwing out the first pitch at ballgames in the 2nd Version set. A couple of times, the person in question is a former player (Tetsuharu Kawakami, Akira Ohgi, Jim Paciorek) but usually they are a celebrity in some other walk of life than baseball - sumo wrestler, model, actor, politican, etc.

It turns out that a couple of the members of the Japanese Winter Olympic team currently competing in Vancouver have appeared in these subsets: speed skater Tomomi Okazaki and curler Mari Motohashi. Here are their cards from the 2006 and 2009 2nd Version sets (#761 and #804 respectively):



In addition, figure skater Shizuka Arakawa, a 2006 Winter Olympian, also appeared in the 2006 2nd Version set. Here's her card (#760):


Did I miss anyone?

Prestige Collectibles Auction

The latest Prestige Collectibles Auction has started and will be running until March 4.

Norihiro Akahoshi Memorial set

BBM is releasing a memorial set for Norihiro Akahoshi in March. It will be a 28 card box set featuring 27 "regular" cards and one insert/autograph/memorabilia card.

Card Of The Week February 14

I mentioned a few weeks ago that none of the cards in the Orix 20th Anniversary set showed anyone wearing an Orix Braves uniform (which the team wore in 1989-90). Here's a card of Boomer Wells from 1990 Lotte set (#37):