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.