Anyway. I bought four new ones which came in the mail yesterday. These are from three different sets which I have in binders which allowed me to do my favorite hobby related thing: flipping those binders open to the relevant page and filling in an empty pocket. I pity the graded card collectors out there who will never know how satisfying that feeling is!
Let me show off what I got and the pages they joined today.
The first card is the one pictured above, featuring Sadaharu Oh and Isao Harimoto. It is from the1977 Calbee set, part of the famous scenes series at the start of the set (#72). I've actually made pretty good progress on this set (which has 216 cards) and am more than halfway there. The back of the card refers to them as the "OH" pair, which is kind of a play on the ON combination of Oh and Nagashima, and also a play on Oh's own name.
Speaking of the ON combination, my next card is from the ON series in the 1974 Calbee set, honoring the retirement of Nagashima and the end of that combo. I love this series for its awesome photos, like Oh standing in front of the mirror there. The new addition was card 403 which shows Oh awkwardly fielding a ball that might have taken a tricky hop, a contrast to most of his cards which show him swinging.
Next up is card 193 in the 1974 set, featuring Sachio Kinugasa. You can tell from the empty pockets in the photo that I don't have as many cards from this part of the set as I do from the ON series. I'm glad to have at least filled it up a bit, but obviously have some work to do.
Last but not least is card 1404 from the monster 1975-76 Calbee set. This is from the final series in the set which is one of the scarcer ones so it is a good addition. I now only have 112 remaining cards to track down to finish this one. That sounds like a lot, but the set has 1472 cards in it so I am well over 90% of the way there!
It's amazing that you've gotten that close to completing the 1975-76 monster! Are you trying to complete the 1974-75 set too?
ReplyDeleteThanks. I've got bids in on 6 more from the 75-76 set that I need so hopefully I'll be able to get it down to just 106 to go.
DeleteI have my 1974-75s in a binder but I'm nowhere near as far along with that one as I am with the 75-76 set. With the upper series (the 1975 ones) I have some of them near complete, but the lower series (1974) there are a lot where I only have a couple of cards. If I can finish the 1975-76 set in the next 3 or 4 years then I'll probably move on to more seriously trying to complete that one.
Fingers crossed the recent collectibles bubble in Japan hasn't impacted these that much. Best of luck.
ReplyDeleteFortunately no (knock wood). The price of old baseball menko have gone through the roof (hence my stopping posting about them about 4 or 5 years ago - I just stopped being able to afford them), but 1970s Calbee (with a few exceptions) haven't been too affected (a situation that I hope will continue.....)
DeleteGreat progress. Whoever owned these cards before took care of them. They're in excellent condition.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah, these ones were in pretty nice shape, though I also have a fair number of "well loved" ones in there too!
DeleteCongratulations on filling in a few more slots in those binder pages! I'm enjoying the good collecting vibes you're putting out there.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I've got some good collecting vibes this week !!
Delete1472 cards is a massive set. That would be a major accomplishment!
ReplyDeleteYeah, its probably the biggest set (in terms of numbered cards) ever made.
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