Error Card Mania hits Japan

 

As Dave recently noted, the regular card of Fighters pitcher Hiromi Ito in this year's Calbee set contains an error.  On the back of the card it lists his height as 176 metres rather than 176 centimetres.

I pulled a copy of the card a few days ago but hadn't noticed the error until seeing Dave's post.  My kids thought it was pretty cool.

Japanese collectors have taken note (Calbee itself put an announcement on its website about the error, promising to replace them with corrected versions).  Yahoo Auctions is now full of Hiromi Ito Error cards with asking prices much much higher than a 2024 Calbee regular card of a pitcher with a 27-28 career record would normally command.

These aren't just sitting there either, a lot of them have bids.  This one for example is up to 1900 Yen (about 13$ US) with 63 watchers. 

This reminds me a lot of the late 80s/early 90s error mania in the US, when 1989 Fleer Billy Ripkens or 1990 Upper Deck Ben McDonalds were the hottest cards on the planet for a brief period. 

The problem for anyone paying real money for an Ito error card is that it doesn't seem like its even remotely rare - there are dozens of copies of it available on Yahoo Auctions right now.  According to Calbee they will start distributing corrected versions of the card from May, so it stands to reason that all of the cards they've issued in April will be the error card, likely a significant number of total production.  It'll probably end up being harder to find than your average Calbee card, but I don't see it being a major valuable card in the future.

Nonetheless, its kind of cool to see some buzz around a card.  Brings me back 35 years......

Checklist time!

 

I printed off a checklist for the 2024 Calbee set yesterday and last night after work my daughter and I sat down with the pile of cards we've accumulated so far, opened a couple of bags of the chips, and she got to work checking off the ones we have. We have 35 different cards now and are making good progress.  She also pulled a Lucky Card which was her first (the past two years her big brother had pulled them but she hadn't) so she was extremely excited about that.

A lot of the cards now have salt and chip grease marks on them from being handled by hands that were simultaneously being used to eat potato chips.  And they also have some dinged corners from being dropped.  But its moments like this that guarantees that if I'm still around 40 years from now some banged up Calbee cards from the early-mid 2020s are probably going to be the only thing in my collection that will put a genuine smile on my face.  

Minor 2024 Calbee Complaint

 

As I've mentioned in my most recent posts, I've been enjoying  collecting the 2024 Calbee set so far this year.  

But for the sake of throwing some rain on my own parade I thought I'd raise one complaint I have with the set.  Too many damn Title Holder cards.

For many years Calbee has been fairly consistent with how it structures its sets.  With each series you get the regular base set, plus several subsets.  The subsets usually consist of:

1) a 24 card "Star Card" set that is a bit harder to find than the regular cards (as noted in my previous post these have a parralel version that are the main "chase" cards in the set).

2) A checklist subset that is usually 4 cards per series.  These are usually my favorite since they tend to feature the best photography.

3) Some kind of throwback subset, often featuring reprints of older Calbee cards.  Numbers in these sets have varied.  These are pretty cool.

4) Some "other set".  Depending on the Series they throw in another kind of random set with some sort of theme - Title Holders, Opening Day, Exciting Scenes, Draft Picks, All Stars, etc etc. These usually have between 18 and 24 cards, though it varies by year and series.

With these "other sets" the quality is pretty hit and miss.  Last year Series 2 for example had a First Victory set that I liked since it featured cool photography from each team's first win of the season that broke with the usually boring Calbee photo selection/framing.  Other sets though often have really dreary designs and when they do its always a let down to find one in a pack.

This year the "other" set is a 2023 Title Holder subset which features league leaders in various categories.  Its got the worst design possible - the player is superimposed on an extremely generic background of out-of-focus lights of some sort, with "2023 Title Holder" in big white letters.  Every card  in the set has the exact same background which means that they all look exactly the same.  Its almost as though the folks at Calbee were challenging themselves to design a subset of cards which would make the regular cards with their predictable, standardized photography look thrilling in comparison.

The really super annoying thing I've noticed this year, which is prompting my complaint,  is that due to Calbee's reduction of the regular base set to 60 cards from 72 the ratio at which you pull these awful Title Holder cards is a lot higher than it previously was.  Over the past 6 packs my kids and I have opened we've pulled 7 regular cards and 5 Title Holder cards.  

These things are truly miserable.  

Good luck with 2024 Calbee so far

 

I've been having a bit of luck with 2024 Calbee Series 1 so far.  My kids and I have opened 8 packs (for a total of 16 cards) and we've just gotten one double.  That double is Munetaka Murakami's Star Card with the gold signature.

This is really weird.  This is one of the big "hit" cards in the set this year. The Star Cards are a kind of "premium" subset that is slightly harder to pull than the regular cards.  The gold signature version of it in turn is a much harder to pull parrallel which is basically the main thing that the box-breakers chase in these.  And Murakami is arguably the biggest star in NPB (at least among batters), so his card is one of the best in the 24 card set.  There is a copy of this card on Yahoo Auctions which has currently been bid up to 1600 Yen.  

This is a rather auspicious way to begin the baseball card collecting year.  The odds of me pulling just one, let alone two of this card are pretty long.  This guy just opened 5 whole cases (120 bags) and only pulled 3 of the gold signature parallel cards so they seem to be lightly seeded.  

I don't really collect these chase cards, but at the same time I'm happy to get them when they fall out of a pack (both of these coincidentally came in packs that I opened rather than my kids, so I've actually hit Murakami gold cards in the majority of the packs I have opened thus far).

In related news I can say that the supply problems that plagued the roll out of Calbee cards in retail stores in 2023 don't seem to be an issue this year.  Bags started appearing in convenience stores within a few days of the official release date on April 1st and I've been able to find them at several different Family Marts so far (I haven't had any luck at 7-11s though, if you are looking).  This is rather handy as I can buy a bag on my way to work in the morning, eat the chips as a snack after lunch, and then buy some more bags on the way home from work to share with my kids (my daughter is very into them this year, my son's interest seems to be waning a bit though.....)

From the 15th they'll be available in supermarkets.  This might seem a minor detail, but they are usually a bit cheaper in supermarkets and their supply is a bit more reliable (convenience stores tend to run out quickly) so I'll probably switch to buying them at the AEON on the way home from next week.  

This, combined with the Dragons being on a winning streak, has been a nice way to start the 2024 season.

2024 Calbee Series 1 has arrived

 

The 2024 season is finally here!  After watching my Dragons drop their first series against the Swallows in Tokyo I was extremely pleased to see them win their home opener last night against the Giants on a dramatic Sayonara home run by Seiya Hosokawa in the bottom of the 11th.

That good baseball mood carried over into today when I stopped at a convenience store in the train station while on my way to work and found bags of this year's Calbee baseball chips were on sale.  It was the same convenience store that I bought my first bags at last year, they seem to get them earlier than others (I had already struck out at a couple of places).  

I pulled cards of Ryosuke Kikuchi and Kaima Taira.  Design wise the cards are more or less the same as they've been since 1997.  The names are in kanji this year and they use a different way of identifying the team (writing the team name out in the stylized font, which I prefer to last year's little box with the team logo in it).  Photography looks as predictable as ever.  

Backs are also the same as usual.  I like the use of the team logo a bit better on these ones compared to last year but otherwise its the same as always.

The bag cost me 126 Yen.  That is both a price increase and a price decrease depending on what kind of money you express it in.  In Yen it is more than the 116 Yen per bag I paid at the same shop last year.  In dollar terms though its less than what they went for a year ago owing to the collapse of the Yen.  At current exchange rates the bag cost me 83 cents today, but were closer to a dollar last year.

Dave wrote a good post a few days ago noting that the base set contains only 60 cards (5 from each team), which is a continuation of the drop from the usual 72 (6 per team) that happened in last year's Series 2.  Also its not clear if they will do just two series this year like they did last or go back to the usual three.  We'll see.  One positive thing is that they've resumed the Lucky Card promotion which they had dropped from the Series 2 release last year for the first time in decades.  The prize is just a lousy card holder, but its still nice to see that back.

That is about it I guess.  I'm not sure how excited I should be about these.  I'll pick up some bags on the way home and see if I can get me kids into them again this year, which will probably go a long way to determining my own level of interest going forward.  At the moment though I'm quite happy.  The release of Calbee chips in the stores is the Japanese retail environment's way of telling my brain that spring is here and adds to the other signals - cherry blossoms, leaves opening up on trees, ball games on TV.  This is my favorite time of the year by far and I'm going to relish it for a few days.  

The Moment Before the Camera Broke

This recently acquired card of Carp pitcher Souhachi Aniya from the 1973 Calbee set (#131) is a cool addition to my collection.

It might not be in the best of shape, but that photo is a classic. That ball looks like it must have hit the camera (or at least nearly missed it) the second after this photo was taken. The blurry form at the bottom of the image suggests this was not planned and might indicate a cameraman rapidly moving to get out of the way.

Calbee sets from the 70s are hard to beat with photos like this.

Mystery Kids

 

I’ve been focusing a bit of my recent collecting attention on the 1975-76-77 monster Calbee set’s slightly smaller but equally appealing older cousin, the 1974-75 Calbee set. I’ll devote a more elaborate post to it at a later date, but I thought I’d do a post about card #754 from it which I picked up a few days ago.

It features a scene from the opening day game between the Giants and Whales played on April 5, 1975. What I love about the card is that the pitcher and catcher are both Elementary School kids. According to the card back, the two kids were chosen to throw out the first pitch. This is pretty common at games, but rare to see on a regular baseball card.

What I find really intriguing s the question of who those kids are and if they ever knew that they appeared on a baseball card. The card itself doesn’t name them or their school and I don’t know if anyone would have told them. The Calbee photographer might have just been snapping photos all day and weeks later some guy at Calbee might have just grabbed this one to make a card out of, not knowing who the kids were.

Or maybe they were told right away that they would be on a card, who knows? 

If its the former though….man, I couldn’t imagine anything more exciting than being a ten year old who got to be on a baseball card. To have done that and never known about it is  just…..hard to get your head around.

Those kids must be about 60 years old now, I’m deeply curious about who they are and whether they know that half a century ago they made it onto a baseball card.

Stuff on Cards: Sadaharu Oh Giving Flowers

 

October 14, 1974 was the last day that Shigeo Nagashima played a baseball game. The Calbee set that year produced a few cards in the Oh/Nagashima (ON) series which commemorated the occasion since it also marked the end of  Sadahauru Oh and Nagashima appearing in the same lineup. The end on an era.

Card 426 in the set is one of the more interesting ones. It shows Oh presenting flowers to Nagashima at the end of the game (the Dragons Yasunori Oshima is on the right, having also given Nagashima some flowers) Its a kind of neat picture, with all those 70s photographers in the background.

The back of the card says;

“At last the time for Mister to put down his bat. Everyone knew that this day would come, but hoped that it would last another year or two. At the end of the game on October 14, 1974 at Korakuen, Oh presented him with flowers on behalf of the Giants, Oshima on behalf of the Dragons.”

Baseball cards that look like Renaissance Paintings: 1978 Calbee Iwao Ikebe

 

I picked up this card featuring Iwao Ikebe of the Hanshin Tigers the other day.  It's from the 1978 Calbee set (JC 7C).  I'm not actively trying to complete that set mainly because it is as confusing as hell.  There were at least 11 different sets released by Calbee that year according to Engel's guide, most of which look the same and none of which have numbers on the cards so keeping track of them just looks like a nightmare. 

Despite that headache, I can't resist buying cards from that year because so many of them have really wonderful photography on them, which is what made me buy this Ikebe.  It reminds me of one of those photos that inadvertently resemble a renaissance painting that you sometimes see floating around on the internet.  Its a great action shot of Ikebe sliding into home, dirt flying, while the Giants catcher prepares to intercept a throw that is going to arrive too late.  Meanwhile a Tigers teammate (Hal Breeden I think) is bent over and keenly looking at the play, probably after signalling to Ikebe to slide.  The umpire is positioned to the left, about to signal "safe".  And to really add a Renaissance touch, a huge Tigers flag waves in the background on the far left of the image.  

How could I not add this to my collection?  

Monster Calbee set slowly draws nearer to completion

I reached another milestone in my 1975-76-77 Calbee set recently: I have surpassed 1300 cards (out of 1472). 

Its been a long, slow slog but in some ways it has become more satisfying the fewer there are left on my want list. This week I added a couple of new ones. 

The first was a big one, card #609 featuring Takeshi Koba. It is from the rarest series (Red Helmets) which, not surprisingly, is the one that I still need the most from. Over the past couple of years cards from it have become noticably harder to find. Normally there aren’t any to be found on Yahoo Auctions and they only pop up every once in a while. When this one showed up and was one I needed I had to pounce.

Its so satisfying to see it in its place in the binder.

 

I also picked up #378 which features four Dragons pitchers and is a nice center pocketer that completed the sheet it belonged in. That one leaves me just three short of having all the pink bordered cards in the set.

These are the remaining cards that I still need! 

40, 44, 45, 47, 58, 61, 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, 616, 617, 620, 621, 622, 624, 626, 628, 629, 637, 638, 643, 691, 701, 707,  728, 742, 766, 770, 790, 793, 794, 796, 801,803, 805, 807, 811, 815, 824, 828, 830, 838, 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, 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

Stop Motion Assembly Model Cards

 

I find myself in the baseball card collector January doldrums.  My collecting activity always takes a nose-dive once the season ends and January is pretty much the worst of it - the holidays are over, its cold, the days are short and the regular season is still more than two months away.  This, along with work keeping me busy, explains my lack of recent posts.

I did however pick up one interesting thing recently.  "Stop Motion Assembly Model" baseball cards of Shigeru Kobayashi and Masayuki Kakefu.

I'd never heard of these before and didn't even know that I should be looking for them.  They were in a big "junk" lot of random 70s cards I bought on Yahoo Auctions a few days ago.  I didn't even notice what they were in the lot pictures and it only became apparent when I had them in my hands. 

These are basically die cut wood figures that are meant to resemble the players on the card as you can see when you flip them over.

These are still sealed in their original packaging so I haven't opened them up, but you can see from the image on Kakefu's what they are supposed to look like when assembled.  Not impressive by today's standards when we are used to very life-like plastic figures, but not bad for the 1970s.

These were produced by a company called Mitsubishi Pencil which confusingly has the same name (Mitsubishi) and logo as the more famous Mitsubishi industrial conglomerate but isn't actually a member of it.  

Given the appearance of Kobayashi as a Giant and Kakefu as a Tiger, these would have been produced sometime between 1974 and 1978.  They had a retail price of 250 Yen (on the upper left corner of the package).  

I'm not sure what, if anything is on the back of the cards (which are roughly postcard sized) since I haven't taken them out of the package.  

These seem to be pretty rare.  Engel doesn't mention them at all, I've never seen them on Yahoo Auctions before and my Google search for them turned up a grand total of one relevant result.  That result was kind of intriguing, it was an image (on pinterest) of this ad here for them:

This is not actually an ad from Mitsubishi Pencil, the producer of them, but rather by Morinaga Caramel which produces a well known caramel candy (pictured in the bottom right of the ad) which is still sold in most convenience stores today.  I can't quite read all the small text in the image, but it seems like these were given out as presents to those who bought a certain number of Morinaga Caramels and sent in the proofs of purchases.  Given that Morinaga Caramels only cost 50 Yen each and the retail price of these figures was 250 Yen, I'm guessing these didn't sell well initially and they ended up giving the leftover stock to Morinaga to dispose of through this promotion, though I'm not sure.

Interestingly the ad gives us some indication of who else is in the set.  In addition to Kakefu it also mentions Hanshin Tigers catcher Koichi Tabuchi.  You can see there are four different posable figures - one batter (which is Kakefu), two pitchers (one of which is Kobayashi, not sure about the other one) and one catcher (Tabuchi).  There are also three cards visible, one of which is my Kakefu, another is Tabuchi and a third one which looks like Isao Harimoto (though I'm not sure about that).  There might be other players who aren't featured in the ad of course so I'm still not sure how many there are, but its a good start!