Tuesday, June 15, 2021

I'm still alive!

 

I stepped away from the blog for three months there.  Everything is good!  Its just that my day job is one of those ones where after years of work your employer subjects you to a months long process the outcome of which is that you either end up with a guaranteed job for life on the one hand, or they let you go and your whole career is over in an instant on the other.  No pressure, ha! Anyway, I'm going through that now so I've stepped away from the blog because I'm too busy, but I've found a few spare minutes and thought I'd devote them to a little update post. 

Despite being busy, I'm still collecting, albeit at a lower rate than usual.  Here are a couple of updates on stuff with my collection.  

1975-76-77 Calbee Monster

Last week I picked up 7 more cards that I needed for my monster 1975-76-77 Calbee set, including the Sachio Kinugasa card (#510) pictured above.  These are the first additions I've made to that set all year and I'm really psyched about finally being able to fill in a few more pockets in those binders. 

My progress on the set has slowed to the crawl over the past couple years, something I've moaned about in previous posts.  The problem is that I've basically picked over what all the established dealers have for sale and so now I'm just waiting and pouncing on new listings, which only come up occasionally.  If you look on Yahoo Auctions at any given moment there are usually more than 2,000 listings for cards from this set so you might think it would be easier.  But that is for a set with 1472 cards, and most of those listings are of cards from a few of the easier to find series so there is heavy duplication of some cards and none for most of the others.  Within those 2,000 plus listings there are probably only 500-600 or so different cards available from that set, and the other 900 or so just don't come up for sale that often. 

I can also tell that I'm not alone in this situation because I'm always getting into bidding wars on those cards when they pop up, even for common cards in common series which just coincidentally happen to not be in any other dealer's inventory.  

The Menko Collection

My menko collecting has kind of fallen off a cliff recently just because of a recent market trend that  economists refer to as "Holy crap when did everything get this damned expensive???"

Basically the market has exploded here like it has in the US.  I think there was a bit of a lag and vintage cards didn't really start skyrocketing in price until a few months after they had in the US, but its happenned here too.  So while I'm still bidding on stuff that I would have won easily a year or two ago, nowadays I find myself getting blown out of the water and not even coming close to the winning bid on anything.  Especially Sadaharu Oh stuff is just no longer attainable in my price range, so I'm glad I knocked a lot of his cards off my want list when they were (though there are still a lot out there I would like to own!)


Anyway, that is my update. In all honesty I'm probably not going to have enough time to resume blogging at my normal rate until the above mentioned work thing-y is resolved, which won't be until later this year.  I'll try to find a bit of time here and there to post updates though, I find that my collection doesn't really feel complete without it being  blogged about!  

12 comments:

  1. Good to see you posting and that's interesting news on the Japanese menko market. It does not seem to have happened over here which is odd because some of the main Ebay sellers are Japanese - you'd have thought they'd be pulling their wares for Yahoo! Japan Auctions. But maybe I just haven't noticed since I'm not buying much vintage anymore.

    Good luck with the "work thing-y".

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    1. Thanks!

      Generally I think Ebay prices were already higher on average than Yahoo Auctions prices, so it might be that the prices here are just "catching up" to what they are there (and therefor prices there wouldn't be affected as much).

      A big part of it to I think is that there are just a lot more eyes on auctions here. I used to be able to get some great steals on menko or other lots that were simply sliding beneath everyone else's radar, but that just isn't happening like it used to even as recently as last year. The market is just way more active than it used to be and it is driving prices up. Especially on Sadaharu Oh stuff. I bought his Doyusha rookie card in decent shape in a lot a while back for about 12,000 Yen a couple years ago but today I'd probably have to pay 3 or 4 times that much for the same lot.

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    2. Oh cards are really hot... I did some flipping (from Japan to the US) before but stopped for 18 months because could not ship because of the virus.. I did buy a little bit of stuff (got a bunch of rookie Nagashima`s cheap) and the price they are now going for is way higher (of course I am happy but feel stupid for not buying more).

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    3. I have that same "I wish I had bought more" feeling. Especially with Oh cards there are a few that I passed up - rookie cards - thinking "Ah, I'm close to my budget for cards this month, I'll just pick it up next time one shows up". And now they are selling for like 5 times more and they are basically out of reach. D-oh!

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  2. Glad to see an update from you. I was wondering if the hobby boom had made its way across the Pacific. Although the market is still wild here in the states... prices are slowly starting to settle. But it's still a lot higher than it was before things took off last year.

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    1. Thanks Fuji, I'm glad to see you are blogging again too :) Also glad to know that card prices in the US are starting to settle, there are still a lot of American cards I want to add to my collection someday (but not if they keep getting more expensive)!

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  3. Do you think that the uptick in prices over there will have legs, or will it just be a temporary surge?

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    1. Not sure, but I think a lot of stuff was undervalued here to begin with so the higher prices might be here to stay.

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  4. Welcome back. I have been on a 2-month hiatus as well and will be back this weekend. Glad to see you have knocked out some of the monster. Sumo cards are getting more and more expensive and I have won a lot less than I would have a few years ago. Good luck on the job!

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    1. Thanks! I noticed that you hadn't posted in a while too, looking forward to your next update! I've also had an eye on sumo cards and noticed the same thing.

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  5. Welcome back Sean, and I hope things work out with your job. I agree with you on bidding on Japanese auctions - I've been getting hit hard on bids for Sumo and baseball cards from Yahoo Japan and prices on boxes are really getting quite high. Again, best of luck!

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    1. Thanks! And yes, it really is a seller's market right now. Which would be great if we weren't buyers!!

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