After finishing my 1987 Calbee set three years ago I decided that 1986 would be the next Calbee set from the 80s that I would try to complete. I actually have most of the other 1980s sets "on the go" but the 1986 set is the only one I have a realistic shot at completing in a reasonable time frame (ie this decade). All the other sets from the 80s have at least one or two hyper rare series that make them extremely difficult to put together. The 1986 set isn't too bad in that regard and at only 250 cards its quite small and probably even easier than the 1987 set, which has almost 400 cards, to put together.
As you can see from the pictures in this post my 1986 set has a binder of its own and sits in lovely 12 pocket pages that are the perfect size for 1980s Calbee cards. This is a mark of honor for it, those pages are extremely hard for me to obtain. Nobody sells them on YJA or Amazon (they do have other 12 pocket pages available, but they aren't quite the right size for 80s Calbees which only THESE specific pages work for). I make a visit to the local card shop Bits once a year or so and the main thing I buy is however many 12 card sheets they have, which is never enough. I'd like to put all my 1980s sets into them, but thus far have only scrounged up enough for the 87 and 86 sets.
Anyway, by my latest count I have 212 cards (84.8%) meaning I just need another 38 to finish the set. Not bad! When putting together my 1987 Calbee set I had narrowed it down to the last 31 cards I needed about 2 years before finishing it, so maybe that might be a realistic timeline for these. Of course that was before the pandemic when cards were a bit easier to get for a decent price so I might have to factor that into it.
One thing I've noticed is that even though there don't seem to be any known short printed series in the set, nearly half of the cards I still need (listed at the bottom of this post) fall between 100 and 150. This could be just a coincidence, but I do wonder if those ones might be a bit harder to find than the other series.
Anyway, I kind of like this set. Its got Kiyohara's rookie card(s) in it and most of the famous 80s foreign stars like Baas and Cromartie. I'll be happy when its finished.
The remaining cards I need are:
59,60,62,74,81,90,99,100,102,103,104,113,115,119, 123, 125, 127, 130, 134, 137, 139, 188, 190,192,204,205,218,219,224,240,243,244,245,250
Anytime I see this many older Calbee cards, I'm so impressed. I imagine it's an extremely challenging task to build these as so many singles are probably buried in collections.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I'd love to find some of those 12-pocket pages.
Its not easy! But being in Japan makes it way easier than it would be outside.
DeleteI bought a box of these pages off of Amazon about 5-6 years ago for around $15. After reading this post, I went back to see how much they were now; it looks like they don't carry them anymore.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been able to find them on Amazon either. I'm worried they might have stopped making them, which will leave me screwed over in terms of putting the rest of my 80s Calbee sets into binders!
DeleteI like the way these cards look in the 12-pocket pages. Nice combination of headshots and action shots, too!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I like them too, these pages are the best.
DeleteVery cool and good luck!! I might be missing something, but I get these 12-pockets often off of eBay…maybe that is the issue…they aren’t on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteOh are they available on Ebay? I've checked Japanese Amazon and Yahoo Auctions but they are hard to find (online and in stores) here in Japan.
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