The Other Time Topps Made a Japanese Set

 

I had about a 6 month stretch in the latter half of 2021 where I stepped back from the hobby since work was so busy (I mentioned the reason for this in a post last summer, if anyone is interested everything worked out well for me in the career department in the end).

When I came back a few weeks ago, I had a hell of a time trying to catch up on what was going on.  Topps was releasing a Japanese set?  Oh, then Topps lost the MLB license and might not produce baseball cards anymore?  Then Topps got bought by some company called Fanatics which had scuppered Topps' licensing deal and now they are going to use Topps to keep making cards?  

That certainly escalated, and then sort of de-escalated, quickly.

Anyway, about Topps' NPB set I've taken a look at the reviews, particularly Dave's, and have decided to give it a pass.  "Meh, boring" seems to be the critical consensus that has formed about the set, and I have to say that I agree.  I say this while hoping that Topps will continue making NPB cards (much as I hope they continue to make MLB cards) but its just.....not THESE kind of cards.  Its a bit awkward to ask, especially with all the shenanigans you've been dealing with recently but please, Topps, make better NPB cards.

Anyway, while I haven't picked up any of the new Topps Japanese cards, I did coincidentally recently pick up some old Topps Japanese cards.  In 2003 Topps teamed up with Japanese company Kanebo (which had previously issued NPB sets in 1993 and 1994) to produce and sell a Topps set in Japan.  

The 2003 Topps/Kanebo set featured MLB players rather than NPB ones, though it has a lot of Japanese MLB players featured in it.  I found a near complete set of the first series on Yahoo Auctions (53 out of 55 cards) and decided to snag it. 

The set uses the design of the 2002 American Topps set on the front, but with Japanese text on the card backs.  They issued a larger second set of 110 cards that was based on the 2003 Topps design and looks completely different.

The near-set I bought also included a wrapper that the cards came in (above).  This brought back some nice memories for me.  My wife and I got married in 2003 when this set came out and I remember one day that summer popping into a Family Mart convenience store near our apartment (we were living in Himeji at the time, very close to its famous castle) and I saw packs of these on the shelf.  I had one of those "What are you doing in Japan?" moments which I get when I unexpectedly come across something familiar from back home (like a pack of Topps baseball cards) in a setting where I wouldn't normally expect to find it.  I always like those moments, so the memory stuck with me. 

I bought one pack, took it home and I remember getting an Albert Pujols out of it which I thought was pretty cool. There were only 3 cards in the pack though, which seemed kind of stingy to me so I didn't buy anymore and I think they disappeared from stores within a few weeks so even if I had wanted to get more I couldn't have.  

At some point in the past 19 years, those three cards I pulled got lost in all my stuff (I probably still have them in a box somewhere but who knows) and I had forgotten completely about them.  Then when I saw this big pile of them up for auction it rekindled memories of a much younger, handsomer, less bothered by nagging back and knee-pain, newlywed version of myself stumbling across the existence of this set. I just knew that I had to complete the mission that guy had started all those years ago.  So I bought it.

I think it was a great buy actually, these cards are quite hard to come by in lots like that.  There are usually a few random singles up for sale on Yahoo Auctions but no more than that.  I don't think these were big sellers back in 2003, perhaps everyone had that same "what, only 3 cards?" reaction I had and stopped buying them after the first pack.  So today they are hard to come by (which is also the case with the second set).  Now I'm just two cards short of finishing the sucker though!  I'll try to track those last two down by the end of this year (the only collecting goal I've set for myself so far this year).