Betto is a pretty big Hall of Famer who I did a small write up about a couple of months ago, so I won't say much more about him in this post.
The set this card is a part of is catalogued in Engel as JCM 132. He lists it as R5, meaning fewer than 5 copies of each card are known and its one of the few sets that they haven't got enough cards of to actually provide even a partial checklist for, so with this find I can contribute the fact that Kaoru Betto has a card in the set and this is what it looks like.
The set is one of the "animal back" type issued in 1957 which are among the hardest of the tobacco era menko sets to find. The name comes from the back, which looks like this:
I love the photo used on this card, its a magnificent shot of Betto with the stands packed full of people creating a perfect backdrop. The resolution is quite good for a 1950s menko card, which is one of the benefits of the black and white ones over the colorized ones!
I just love making little discoveries like this!
Awesome....I love discovering new cards that haven't been checklisted! I have a taba pack and display sheet of this equivalent sumo wrestling set. It is made by Marusan and is from 1956. My display sheet has 3-, 5-, & 6-digit cards on it so I am pretty sure Engle's JCM 132 and JCM 133 are all the same set. The crosshatching is inconsistent on all the cards as well...some have it and some don't. You have a 5-digit card above, but they are all from the same set. This is a rare set to find for sure.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, that is interesting. Yeah, Engel lists them separately but its neat to learn they are in the same set. And having a taba pack and display sheet of the sumo version must be a one of a kind thing! I have one of the 3 digit baseball cards too, but that is all!
DeleteCongratulations on both the discovery of a new card... and adding it to your collection. That's pretty darn cool.
ReplyDeleteThanks!!
DeleteThat really is a fantastic card -- front and back!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I think so too :)
DeleteVery nice. I too discover many uncatalogued vintage Japanese cards. I wish there was a forum somewhere where collectors could crowd source scans and try to identify/catalog sets that Engel hasn't listed.
ReplyDeleteOh neat. Yeah I totally agree that it would be a good idea to be crowd sourcing this info instead of having it scattered around the internet on random blogs (like this one!).
DeleteI think there are some forums which have catalogued the Calbee sets, but none that have done the menko sets that I know of. There are a lot of uncatalogued ones out there too so it would be good to get this info out in an organized way.
I set up a Reddit page about a year ago with hopes of doing it. Let me know if you and NPB Card Guy are interested in working on it with me and I will make you admins.
DeleteSure, just post a link!
Deletehttps://www.reddit.com/r/JapaneseBBCards/
ReplyDeleteThanks, I just joined!
Delete