The above is a box of Pro Yakyu "DX" cards produced by Yamakatsu in 1976. As the red numbers near the bottom indicate, it contains 20 cards which sold for 50 Yen back in the day. The cards are pretty big so its not a bad deal.
Open it up and you find a couple of bonuses. There is an extra card, of Sadaharu Oh no less, pasted to the inside flap, so you've got 21 instead of just 20 cards. Plus there are two albums.
The albums (they are the same) hold three cards each and are specifially "Oh Albums" for storing your Sadaharu Oh cards in. As is
so often the case with cards from the late 70s, recent HOF inductee Koichi Tabuchi makes a prominent cameo behind the plate in the photo.
Spill it all out and this is what you've got!
Its pretty easy to date the set to 1976 thanks to this card, which shows him celebrating his 715th home run (note Tabuchi again making a cameo appearance), which he hit that year.
There are some other cool cards of hall of famers in the set, like Sachio Kinugasa:
And Katsuya Nomura:
I like this set a lot, but I'm very confused about what set it is. Looking at the Engel guide, I'm pretty sure it is the set he catalogues as JY1. The checklist matches up nicely with the cards I have, the description matches them perfect and the Oh card Engel uses a picture of as an example is identical to the one glued to the flap of the box.
But Engel gives this set the nickname "Blue Box". Because it came in a blue box. My box is green.
There is another set, JY1c, which is similar and Engel says it came in a green box. But the checklist for that one is definitely different from mine (the 715 home run Oh card only appears in the checklist for JY1 for example).
There are a few other Yamakatsu sets listed but none of them match this one either. It has to be JY1, but again - green box!
In writing about the late 70s Yamakatsu issues Engel notes, accurately, that "these sets are among the most confusing issues in history" and also acknowledges that there may be some mistakes in the way they were catalogues owing to limited information. I think my confusion over these would be resolved by recognizing that the JY1 "Blue Box" set was also released in green boxes.
Anyway, this is a cool set either way!
Spill it all out and this is what you've got!
Oh wow, so cool! The photography on the Oh albums is awesome. Sounds like you might have helped solve a bit of the mystery with these sets. Cool piece of card history for sure! Can't believe you were able to find one of these.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm embarrassed at how cheap I was able to score it for too (less than 2000 Yen, about 1/10th of BIN prices I've seen on them), it was one of those auctions nobody else noticed!
DeleteI love the photography on a lot of the Yamakatsu cards but trying to figure out which set either the big cards or the postcard sized ones are from is incredibly frustrating.
ReplyDeleteNice find!
Yeah, I do love the photos on a lot of them but could do without the confusion of figuring out what is what!
DeleteThese are awesome! The photo on that album is fantastic... as is the celebration card.
ReplyDeleteThe celebration card caught my eye too!
DeleteGreat photography on these... and I really dig that box!
ReplyDeleteThe photos make the cards :)
DeleteImagine being a kid in Japan in 1976 and receiving this box as a gift? Wow. Such great photography. Cool that it comes with the albums, too.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that must have been pretty cool for kids!
DeleteI'm curious if your cards are blank-backed. JY1 is blank-backed. JY1c is also blank-backed, with many similar cards. JY1 came with embossed premium cards, but JY1c included albums.
ReplyDeleteJY3 aren't blank-backed, and came in a green box with an aqua wrapper.
I have a box that is almost identical to yours, the same number in the lower-left corner, and all the main text is identical. Except that your box contains 12 copyrighted team names, while mine only has 11. My box is most like JY1a, given that my wrappers have the Taiheiyo logo.
The JY3 box has 12 copyright lines, but the JY1 and JY1c boxes are unknown from Engel's descriptions. I'm guessing that you have either JY1c (blank back) or JY3 (blue text on back) box. But... the seller could have (possibly unknowingly) mixed types from multiple boxes. Did you have actual packs inside, or just loose cards? That could explain the Oh.
I love Yamakatsu DX cards, and I've been meaning to actually open this box for quite some time. I'd say you got a decent deal, but I wouldn't let those buy-it-now prices fool you, as actual sales prices are generally much lower. Great things to have in your collection, and they look beautiful on display!
Thanks, yes they are blank backed. I've been emailing back and forth with another collector and he suggested (and I agree) that its probable these are JY1 cards which were just being stored in a JY3 box, probably with JY3 albums. The cards weren't in packs, but were just loose.
DeleteI've been really getting into Yamakatsu sets recently, I have a few unopened packs of stuff that I've been itching to open too!
And yes, the BIN prices are quite unrealistic.