This is my 1963 Marusho Flag Back (JCM 13C) card of Sadaharu Oh. Its a beauty.
This set is one of the ones that were imported to the US in the 1960s by Bud Ackerman, an American sailor stationed in Japan. I highly recommend Dave's excellent post on the history behind that, its a really interesting read.
Ackerman and his young son, after buying a lot of 10,200 of these cards, went to work stamping numbers on the back to help American collectors with player identification. So a lot of the ones floating around in the American market today (though not all) have a number from 1 to 40 stamped on the card back. Oh was given number 30 by Ackerman's son.
In Japan on the other hand its way more common to find them without a stamped number and my Oh doesn't have one.
I have a few cards from this set and none of them have the stamped number. I was curious if maybe some of Ackerman's cards had found their way into the Japanese market, either back in the 60s or maybe more recently, but my own collection shows no signs of this. My Masaichi Kaneda also lacks a number.
I have several cards from this set, some purchased from Americans and some purchased from Japanese sellers. All of my cards from American sellers are stamped, and none of my cards from Japanese sellers are.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. According to Dave's post about half of his cards from the set have the stamped numbers and half don't!
DeleteIt is an awesome story and one of the pioneers of Japanese baseball cards in America it sounds like. Cool set.
ReplyDeleteVery much so!
DeleteI hadn't heard of this story before, but is sounds pretty amazing! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to read the linked article :)
ReplyDeleteI do recommend that article, its a good one!
DeleteVery informative post. It's crazy to think Ackerman had access to 10,200 of these singles. I'm s'Oh jealous.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that must have been a lot of fun having that many of them!
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