Sunday, September 27, 2020

Dogs Wearing Caps

 

This is one of the new key pieces of my collection.  Its an uncut sheet from the 1948 set Engel catalogues as JBR 118.  The set was issued in sheets like this, each featuring 10 cards from a team.  Mine features members of the Yomiuri Giants and has a few Hall of Famers like Tetsuharu Kawakami, Shigeru Chiba, Noburo Aota and manager Osamu Mihara.

Engel only lists the sheets for four teams (Braves, Flyers, Hawks and Giants) in the guide and states that only one copy of each is known to exist.  So my Giants sheet is either that one known copy, or it is a newly discovered second copy.  I'm leaning towards the second as being more likely, given that I bought it from an antique dealer located in Kobe who probably dug it up locally.  Either way, these are pretty hard cards to find.  

The backs of the cards have pictures of dogs wearing baseball caps in red.  Hence Engel gave this set the nickname "Dog Wearing Baseball Cap".  Which is pretty cool.  

9 comments:

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  2. Oh wow! It took me about 10 seconds to see the dog image on the back. Looks like they came in a magazine. Awesome that you found a second copy out there. Engel only recently catalogued this set a few years ago in his Vintage 2.0 edition so I would imagine they rarely come up since they were only recently discovered. Awesome find!

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    1. Yeah, the dog is hard to see in there! Except for this one I've never seen any others out there!

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  3. Puppies and baseball are two of my favorite things in the world.

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    1. Its nice when a card encapsulates two of your interests simultaneously!

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  4. Nice find. Rare, great condition and handsome set.

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  5. Very nice! Did you get that from Larry Fuhrmann?

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    1. Actually no, it was from a different guy in Kobe who mostly sells antique toys but sometimes gets old menko too.

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