With spring weather having arrived this week and the season just around the corner, I've re-started the engine on a baseball card collection that has lay dormant since November. The first project I dusted off over the weekend was the 1975-76-77 Calbee set.
I realized as I did so that I've been working on this set for a full decade now, having gotten my first cards for it back in 2013. At 1472 regular cards its probably the biggest set ever made, and having been originally sold one at a time in bags of chips almost half a century ago they aren't super easy to find. Thus this has been a decade long collecting project, which is not yet complete.
Doing a bit of stock taking though I realize that I am finally nearing the "home stretch". I picked up five new cards that I need this week off of Yahoo Auctions, which brings me to a grand total of (drum roll):
1273 cards.
That puts me at 86.5% complete! Not bad. Just 199 cards to go.
I've got the set in two binders. The first binder holds the first 900 cards, the other one everything above that. At some point I'll splurge on a proper second binder, but for now it is sufficient.
I love opening the first binder and being greeted by the lovely All Star cards that begin the set.
There are three regional series in the set which are fairly scarce and hard to track down, two issued in the Hiroshima area and one in the Nagoya area. I've made pretty good progress with the Nagoya ones (pictured below) and am almost finished with one of the Hiroshima ones.
That said, the second Hiroshima regional issue (the "red helmet" series from 609 to 644) seems to be the rarest in the whole set and I'm still less than half of the way to completing it. This creates an aesthetically displeasing run of pages near the middle of the first binder which still have a lot of empty pockets in them.
Fortunately one of the five cards I picked up this week was from that series, the very last card (644) featuring Sachio Kinugasa which now satisfyingly sits in its place. It was a bit expensive (5250 Yen), but I decided to treat myself.
Another thing that really stands out in the first binder are the pink bordered series cards, which have clear 1975 Topps influence in their design. I've got almost all of those now and just need to round up a few stragglers to finish them off.
The last series in the set, from 1400 to 1432, is also pretty hard to find. I have about 2/3 of them but still need quite a few. This is the last page of the entire set:
40, 44, 45, 47, 58, 61, 63, 67, 72, 83, 106, 113, 124, 190, 193, 196, 203, 209, 213, 271, 311, 312, (star he no ayumi), 289, 295, 306, 321, 322 (Hiroshima series), 377, 477, 478, 481, 482, 483, 491, 499, 500, 525, 610, 611, 614, 615, 616, 617, 618, 620, 621, 622, 624, 625, 626, 628, 629, 632, 634, 637, 638, 641, 643, 691, 701, 707, 728, 742, 766, 770, 790, 793, 794, 796, 801,803, 805, 807, 811, 815, 824, 827, 828, 829, 830, 833, 838, 840, 843, 847, 848, 850, 852, 855, 872, 894, 920, 923, 933, 936, 938, 939, 942, 943, 945, 946, 950, 951, 954, 955, 958, 959, 961, 963, 974, 1041, 1044, 1056, 1114, 1116, 1117, 1122, 1127, 1130, 1132,1169, 1207, 1293, 1298, 1312, 1320, 1329, 1357, 1359, 1361, 1363, 1365, 1374, 1378, 1379, 1383, 1384, 1388, 1393, 1394, 1396, 1401, 1403, 1404, 1405, 1408, 1414, 1426, 1428, 1430, 1433, 1434
That is amazing! I didn't realize you were that close.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I didn't realize either since I hadn' bothered to count how many I had remaining in years. I figured I had over 1,000, but was pleasantly surprised to realize I was within 200 of reaching the finish line.
DeleteThat's some dedication right there. It comes out to about one card every three days for ten years.
ReplyDeleteYup, this is one collecting project you really have to dedicate yourself to over the long haul. One card every three days over 10 years sounds about right, though there has been huge variation in the frequency of new pick ups. In the first couple of years I was adding them at way higher a rate than that since there were so many I needed I could buy them in lots of 10-20 cards and almost all of them were ones I needed. The past 5 years or so in particular though its been a very slow crawl as I've been adding maybe 20 or 30 cards a year. The last 200 will definitely be the hardest!
DeleteIt's amazing to me that there's only three confirmed sets. That's a terribly low number compared to any set released in the US during the same time period. It makes me wonder too if anyone outside of Japan has been/is crazy enough to try and build this one? From what you've said, it seems like it would be almost impossible to do so.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be impossible to put one together in the US, or at least prohibitively expensive. That goes for most vintage Calbee sets, not just this one.
DeleteWay cool and best of luck with the last ~200. Epic set for sure!
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot! I picked up a couple of more this week after writing this. Unless someone unexpectedly lists all the cards I need, I don't think I'll be able to finish it this year, but maybe 2-3 more years will do it!
DeleteOh and PS, I hope you start blogging again!
DeleteSean, persistence will win out...I'll keep an eye out for your cards...looking at your list, it seems that you might have both 661 cards...according to Gary Engel's book, there are two 661's...Clyde Wright and Yoshinori Yamashita. Yamashita does have a 661 card, but not from that set...I've never seen one; if you have one, you have a real rarity and would love to see it in a future blog. Keep on keepin' on!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Oh yeah, I haven't been keeping track of the variations like that, I have to check which of 661 I have in the binder. In fact, I'll also have to check my pile of doubles as I might have both versions and just put one in the binder.
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