Mine is autographed.
I didn’t get the autograph in person, rather this was something I bought on impulse several years ago. I don’t often buy autographed cards since I’m not good at detecting forgeries, but this one had a pretty decent provenance. I bought it from Biblio, a famous store in the Jinbocho neighborhood in Tokyo that is probably the leading dealer of vintage baseball memorabilia in Japan. The owner is known in Japan as one of the leading experts on baseball autographs and has appeared on a TV show that I watch every Tuesday called Nandemo Kanteidan, which is kind of a Japanese version of Antiques Roadshow. Regular people bring their antiques and experts tell them if they are valuable authentic pieces or worthless fakes.
So if I see something from them, and it looks good to my amateur eyes, I figure its probably good. I didn’t go to the store in person (Dave has visited twice and has written about what the actual store was like, including a complaint on his last visit), but rather picked it up from their online store.
I bought it before the pandemic hit and the price of vintage stuff, and especially Sadaharu Oh vintage stuff, took off so I didn’t pay that much for it. I rather like autographed vintage cards and couldn’t resist this one in particular. It got kind of mixed up with some other stuff after I got it, something that often happens with oddball items in my collection that I don’t have a “category” in my rudimentary sorting system for. I was happy to find it.
Great looking card... and perfect for getting signed.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah, that blue sky background is ideal for autographs.
DeleteI have what I think is a 1959 menko handcut and am trying to determine who the player is. I purchased it 7 or 8 years ago as an Oh but it's not him (the player fields right handed not left). Any thoughts?
DeleteVery cool! I have that card and I think it was Oh's first Calbee card - at least numerically.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that about Biblio's owner but it doesn't surprise me. My gripes about the somewhat underhanded thing they pulled on me aside, Biblio's a really interesting store and you don't know what in the way of baseball cards you might find there.
I don't have an Oh autograph but I have a somewhat surprising story about one. My daughter's ex-boyfriend's father has one! There used to be an annual banquet here in Baltimore put on at Towson State over the winter called "Tops In Sports" and Oh had attended it sometime in the 1980's. David's not a Japanese baseball fan but he apparently was in the right place at the right time because he got Oh's autograph on the banquet program. He was surprised my daughter knew who Oh was - one of the few benefits of having a blogger of Japanese baseball cards for a father I guess. I was trying to figure out how to pry the autograph from him as kind of a reverse dowry but my daughter and his son split up and have both since married other people.
Ha! That is funny. When my daughter is old enough, knowledge of baseball is going to be part of the standards by which I judge her suitors, as will any baseball related dowry potential!
DeleteNext time I am in Tokyo I plan on stopping at Biblio. If I buy any cards, I’ll be watching to make sure none disappear when being tallied!
Huh, Sean must have every Japanese baseball card collector in Baltimore commenting on his blog. Both of us.
DeleteAnyway, an Oh autograph is really nice! Especially if you didn't have to take out another mortgage to do it. Prices on all things Oh-related seem to have run up considerably.
I like the fact that Baltimore has emerged as a hotbed of Japanese baseball card collecting,
DeleteOh autographs (and cards) were relatively cheap here until a couple of years ago. The price I paid for this (I think it was in 2019 but might be off by a year) was pretty close to what an unsigned copy of the same card would cost today.
I was fortunate to have gotten the Oh stuff I did when I did, but I do regret not having pulled the trigger on a few things when I had the chance!