Unfortunately I'm unlikely to ever own this card as its from one of the short printed series in 1973 Calbee which prices have been going through the roof on lately. The series this one is in (which runs from cards 210 to 236) was only issued in Nagoya and is one of the hardest Calbee series from the 70s to find. Current bidding is at 15,500 Yen (about $150 US) and counting with three days left, and that is for a copy of the card of a common player with dinged corners.
But oh what a card! It really reinforces the value of taking card photos in actual big league stadiums rather than spring training facilities like Topps did back then.
Wow. That card is gorgeous! Interesting that Calbee only distributed certain cards in certain regions back in the day.
ReplyDeleteYa!
DeleteThe regional distribution thing certainly does make collecting the sets a challenge!
Yikes, that is crazy. I wish I would have the time to track YJA bidding trends more closely, but I believe there is a good correlation between how much a card is being bid on 1-2-3 days from auction close and for approximately what it will go for. Japanese bidding styles seem to be a bit different than on eBay.
ReplyDeletePart of the different bidding styles might be explained by the fact that you can't snipe someone in a Yahoo Auction. If you wait til the last second and then outbid someone on an item, the system automatically adds 10 minutes to the auction to give the previous highest bidder the chance to respond.
DeleteThis probably makes bidding strategies here way different htan on Ebay!