Another "find" I made recently were these four cards, all featuring members of the Dragons from the 1950s.
These cards (which are roughly the same size as 1980s Calbee mini cards) seem to be uncatalogued (if I just missed their entry in Engel, someone let me know!). They are made of cardboard and look like they were handcut. Their backs have a simple design.
The fronts of the cards say "Nagoya" and have the player's name written on them. The ones I got (with their years with the Dragons) are:
Shigeru Sugishita (HOF) (1949 to 1960)
Michio Nishizawa (HOF) (1949 to 1958)
Satoshi Sugiyama (1948 to 1958)
Tokuzo Harada (1948 to 1958)
This was not a Dragons only set, the seller just broke up the cards he had into lots organized by team and, being a Dragons fan, I bid on the Dragons lot.
In terms of dating the set, all four players had a lengthy overlap in their careers spanning from 1949 to 1958 so its hard to narrow it down. The fact that the team is identified as "Nagoya" rather than its current "Chunichi" is an important clue though as the Dragons were known as the "Nagoya Dragons" for just a short period between 1951 and 1953, so these likely came out during one of those years.
They are kind of cool cards, I like the colorful backgrounds on them. They don't have any menko-related symbols or anything on them so they aren't menko. At the same time they don't look like other early 50s bromides, nor do they have any ads for confectionary items either. This makes them hard to categorize based on other types of sets that were available in the early 50s in Japan.
Maybe a magazine insert? IIRC those were relatively common in that time period.
ReplyDeleteYeah, might be something like that, I've seen others before.
DeleteIt's a karuta set - JK22 "1953 Middle School Student & Friend". Engel says they were issued in a box as a gift to the subscribers of the magazine. The cards were in uncut sheets of six. The box says it's a karuta set but the cards don't have the usual karuta symbols on them. There were 48 player cards (and 48 "reading cards") total - you've got all the Dragons cards. Engel lists the set as R3.
ReplyDeleteCool find!
Ah, thanks a lot, I totally missed that. The cards don't have any of the usual karuta things as you say so I didn't even think to look there.
DeleteI wouldn't have either - I was thinking magazine insert like Nick said. But I did a search for "Sugiyama" through the pdf of Engel's guide - figured there'd be fewer of those than of Sugishita or Nishizawa but there were still 130-ish to look through - until I found the set.
DeleteHa, I appreciate that effort!
DeleteVery cool, too bad the seller didn’t have them as a lot!
ReplyDeleteThe seller seems to have had a complete set and is breaking them up into team lots. I just won a couple others (Hawks and Tigers) but they haven't arrived in the mail yet. The others got passed me though.
Delete