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Had some major excitement at my house last night. I brought home three bags of Calbee baseball chips from work. The kids and I have been putting the set together bag by bag this year which has been great fun. One thing that I have discovered in the process is that putting a set of Calbee cards together that way is made massively easier if you have three mouths to eat the chips rather than just one. I've tried putting sets together on my own a few times in the past and it always ended up with my house overflowing with bags of potato chips that I just couldn't eat because there were too many of them. We've actually got about 3/4 of the base set put together now, which is pretty good.
The excitement of opening bags has been waning recently though as we inevitably are getting mostly doubles now. But there was one thing that was keeping our enthusiasm up - the chase for a Lucky Card.
As I've written about on here before, Lucky Cards are cards that you can redeem for prizes. This year's Lucky Card will get you a card album, which is an extremely enticing prize for a seven or four year old kid. They've been wanting one of these ever since we opened the first bag but so far we've been out of luck.
Until last night that is. After dinner and after my son did his homework, I gave him one of the bags to open. He opened up the cards and immediately started bouncing off the walls screaming "I got a Lucky Card!!!!!!" in excitement. Seeing a kid get a card he really wanted like that is an impressive thing to behold. It reminded me of my own childhood when I'd get a Don Mattingly in a pack. I had my camera handy so I snapped some pictures of his moment of victory.
So this morning I stopped off at the post office to buy a pre-paid postcard. We have to cut out a tab on the Lucky Card, glue it to the postcard and mail it to Calbee, and within a month they say they'll have our card album at the door. That is so great since it means the excitement of the chase for a Lucky Card is now replaced by the excitement of the wait for a package to arrive in the mail. He'll be checking that mailbox every day when he comes home from school for the next few weeks until the day it arrives.
This makes me really psyched about Calbee Series 2, which should be hitting the stores later this month and will mean a whole new chance to chase the Lucky Card in that one for whatever prize they'll be giving out that time.
That's really great. Can't say I've ever pulled anything that made me quite that excited. Hope the album lives up to his expectations.
ReplyDeleteI haven't gotten anywhere near that excited about pulling a card in over 30 years. Its nice to have a reminder of what it was like collecting as a kid. I predict that the album won't be anywhere near cool enough to live up to the expectations (especially since it only holds 48 cards, not big enough to house his set), but I'm happy to see him enjoy the wait in the meantime.
DeleteCool! Tell the little guy we say congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I will!
DeleteOh cool. Congrats!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteIt's kind of nice to see that a company is doing redemption for something other than an autograph. Although it is a kind of funny to think that way back when special binders for specific sets would often be available as a mail-in offer on the back of packs, and now they're only available through a difficult to pull redemption.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I do like the simplicity of this one - just getting a card album. I think in the next Series they will be offering something different (usually some kind of special card set that has way more collector value than the albums).
DeleteIt's awesome that you guys are building this set. It's even more awesome that your son is interested in baseball cards. Congratulations to your son for that "lucky" pull!
ReplyDeleteThanks, building a set with kids is definitely a great experience.
DeleteNice!
ReplyDeleteIf Google Translate is to be believed, it looks like Series Two's Lucky Card redemption is just the cards issued for whichever team you want - the six "regular" base set cards plus the two (or three in the Fighters' case) Star insert cards. Not sure if they are some special parallel version of them or not.
ReplyDeleteI was looking into that last night. It looks like those are parallel cards with an embossed signature on them and not just the normal ones. Its confusing since the Calbee website and ads don't mention that at all and when you read it it looks like its just regular cards plus two star cards.
DeleteSeries 2 hasn't appeared in stores yet, but they seem to have been released through other channels since the re-sellers on Yahoo Auctions are already selling sets and singles. The Lucky Cards are already selling and are going for way more than the ones from Series 1 (not popular among collectors due to the albums), with bidding on one copy over 2,000 Yen right now (definitely not something people would be paying if it could only be redeemed for regular cards). https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/m1054497546
Cool story. Can you post a pic of the potato chip packs the cards come in? I look for that at the Japanese food stores in Texas but haven't seen one yet. Lots of Calbee chips for sale here, but none seem to have baseball cards inside.
ReplyDeleteThis is what the chip bags look like here (they vary the color a bit, series 2 are the same design but green): https://www.calbee.co.jp/products/detail/?p=20220124163610
DeleteThe Series One and Three bags are always red and Series Two is always green, right? At least for the last 10 years or so?
DeleteI've checked numerous Japanese food stores in the US over the years and I've never seen bags of "Pro Yakyu Chips". I don't think anyone imports them.
Yeah, I think that is about right (though some years its different, I think I've seen orange Series 3 bags but can't remember the year).
DeleteIts odd that nobody tries to import them alongside other Calbee products, seems there is a potential market for them (admittedly a pretty niche one).