Full set of 1975-76 Calbee Cards Available!

There is a really interesting item up for bid over on Yahoo Auctions right now.  A complete set of 1975-76 Calbee cards:

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/u184349878

I love writing about that set on here because its one of my favorites and also probably one of the most difficult sets in the world to put together owing to its sheer size.  The cards are numbered 1 to 1436, and for #s 289 to 324 there are two version of each (one is a boyhood photos of the stars subset, the other is a Hiroshima Carp subset called the "red helmet" series, which is a bit harder of the two to find), so the master set is 1472 cards.

It is extremely rare for a complete vintage (pre 1990) Calbee set to come up for auction, let alone the biggest.  I have never seen a complete set and while I am passively working away on one myself, I only have about 600 different cards.  Any other set and that would mean I was almost there, but with this monster I'm not even halfway!

I wouldn't necessarily recommend getting your wallets out for this one, the starting bid is 1,280,0000 Yen (about $11,000 US) with a BIN price option at 1,800,000 (about $16,0000 US or so I think). To be honest I have no idea if that is a fair price for it since this is the first time I've ever seen a full set and there just aren't many out there, but at almost $10 per card (for the starting bid price) it feels a bit high.  There are some short printed rare series that were only regionally issued (one of Chunichi in Nagoya, another in Hiroshima) but I don't think they quite add enough to explain the price since most of the commons can be had for 100-300 Yen each in auctions.

Regardless of the price though its a pretty impressive sight!  Bidding ends in 2 days.

On a side note, this is my first post in a few months.  My wife gave birth to a little girl in December so I've been a bit too busy for blogging since then, but will try to update here a bit more often!