I picked up this card on Yahoo Auctions the other day and I'm really pleased with it.
Its from one of the extraordinarily difficult to keep track of sets that Calbee put out in 1978. Its difficult because the cards are not numbered and were issued in ten series that have slightly differing designs. There still does not exist a complete checklist of all of them (Engel's guide explicitly states that all of the cards are not known, and in Japanese Sports Card Magazine never even bothered trying).
This card I picked up is from the "Pennant Race" series and features Dragon's Hall of Famer Morimichi Takagi sliding into home in a game on April 2nd of 1978 (given how early in the season one wonders why they would include it in a series about a supposed pennant race, but I digress).
I love the action photo, with Morimichi's grimaced face captured in perfect detail, and the umpire looking on about to call him safe (presumably).
The back of the card is also quite neat though. Its not the normal back of this card, but rather a Home Run card back:
In the 1970s, like today, Calbee would run contests to give away prizes. Today these come in the form of "Lucky Cards" which you can send in to redeem for a prize. Back then, they would just change the backs of some cards from the regular design to a Home Run card design, which you could send in to redeem for the prize. The prize you could win for this one would be either a mascot bat with a printed signature, a card album, a baseball fan book or, if you collected three of them, a ball with a printed signature on it.
Since only a small number of any given card had a Home Run card back, and most of those were sent in to be redeemed as prizes back in the day, its really rare to find cards with Home Run Card backs today and they are highly sought after by Japanese collectors. I was only able to score this one by chance, the seller wasn't a card dealer and hadn't noted the fact that it was a home run card in the description so it flew under everyone else's radar. Score for me:)
Nice! I've heard of these but never seen one.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't easy to find, this is only the second one in my collection.
DeleteAs I'm sure you know, Topps always had separate cards for its contests. Like the winner cards in the newer calbee sets. I recently bought a box of early 80s/late 70s Topps for $2, just for the joy of flipping through old cards, and found it had a handful of the old contest cards. Sort of neat since I suppose they were mostly cashed in too. Unfortunately, unlike home run cards, the Topps versions aren't worth anything. My guess is that set collectors regard their sets as complete even without the contest cards. Which I suppose makes a certain amount of sense, they don't go looking for the gum either.
ReplyDeleteAll that leads me to believe that the WINNER cards in the newer Calbee sets aren't going to retain much value.
I remember those Topps contest cards you'd get in packs back in the 80s, I used to just throw them out (having a mailing address outside the US precluded me from entering the contests anyway). The value of the current Calbee lucky cards vary significantly according to what the prize is. Last year they could be redeemed for some limited edition cards, so the Lucky Cards would sell for about 3-4,000 Yen each on Yahoo Auctions. Since its only an album with the current series they are selling for way less than that, like 500-800 Yen range. Once they expire and can't be redeemed anymore they plummet in value, you can find ones from a few years ago for like 100 Yen each or so on Yahoo Auctions.
DeleteThe Home Run cards from the 70s are different, since they are more like rare variations of the actual cards on the front, so they have a strong collector's market for them.
The box had an OPC contest card. I bet you could have redeemed one of those.
ReplyDeleteOh wow, I don't think I ever noticed that!
DeleteNice pick up and wow, that image is really cool. Congrats on it being a Lucky Card as well.
ReplyDelete