1970s Collisions at the plate with Shiro Mizunuma

 

It has been almost a year since my last post, which is a record setting hiatus for me.  When I'm busy and the Dragons are doing terribly the combination of the two usually depresses my blogging output.  Its been a banner year for both of these factors so far in 2026. 

I picked up a few 1970s Calbees recently that have given me a bit of motivation to start posting again, so I'm dusting the blog off for them.  These are two of them, both featuring Hiroshima Carp catcher Shiro Mizunuma defending home plate.  The one above is from the 1978 set and features him about to catch a tardy throw to the plate in an early season game against the Swallows.  The one below is from the 1979 set and shows him about to get knocked over during the Nippon Series against Kintetsu, which the Carp would go on to win that year.

I bought both of these mainly for the neat action photos, which modern Calbee cards just don't have.  I didn't even notice that Mizunuma was in both of them until after buying them.  He was a kind of journeyman catcher who played for the Carp throughout the 70s but was never an All Star or anything.  His main claim to fame is that he caught all 7 games in the above 1979 Nippon Series for them.  And that after retirement he opened a restaurant in Hiroshima which I think might still be open (?)

These were the first cards I've bought this year, with the exception of a few from bags of Calbee chips I've bought as snacks at work.  My kids aren't as interested in collecting them with me as they were in previous years, and the fact that the sets are just brutally awful (and now cost more) has turned me off trying to seriously put this year's together for the first time in many years.  But having these 70s cards in hand has got me a bit more enthusiastic about working on those sets, particularly the monster 1975-76 set that I'm getting tantalizingly close to finishing, so I'll probably try to set aside some more time for the collection for the rest of the season even as the Dragons continue to suck and I continue to be busy with  other things!

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?  

Calbee Home Run Cards

I picked up this card on Yahoo Auctions the other day and I'm really pleased with it.

Its from one of the extraordinarily difficult to keep track of sets that Calbee put out in 1978.  Its difficult because the cards are not numbered and were issued in ten series that have slightly differing designs.  There still does not exist a complete checklist of all of them (Engel's guide explicitly states that all of the cards are not known, and in Japanese Sports Card Magazine never even bothered trying).  

This card I picked up is from the "Pennant Race" series and features Dragon's Hall of Famer Morimichi Takagi sliding into home in a game on April 2nd of 1978 (given how early in the season one wonders why they would include it in a series about a supposed pennant race, but I digress). 

I love the action photo, with Morimichi's grimaced face captured in perfect detail, and the umpire looking on about to call him safe (presumably).  

The back of the card is also quite neat though.  Its not the normal back of this card, but rather a Home Run card back:

In the 1970s, like today, Calbee would run contests to give away prizes.  Today these come in the form of "Lucky Cards" which you can send in to redeem for a prize.  Back then, they would just change the backs of some cards from the regular design to a Home Run card design, which you could send in to redeem for the prize.  The prize you could win for this one would be either a mascot bat with a printed signature, a card album, a baseball fan book or, if you collected three of them, a ball with a printed signature on it.

Since only a small number of any given card had a Home Run card back, and most of those were sent in to be redeemed as prizes back in the day, its really rare to find cards with Home Run Card backs today and they are highly sought after by Japanese collectors.  I was only able to score this one by chance, the seller wasn't a card dealer and hadn't noted the fact that it was a home run card in the description so it flew under everyone else's radar.  Score for me:)

1978 Yakult Swallows Victory Cards are Selling Well, if anyone was wondering

One auction I was watching that just ended was for five cards from the 1978 Calbee Yakult Swallows Victory set.

The cards are easily distinguishable from other Calbee cards thanks to their colorful border designs, one of the few from the 70s that didn't just go with a full bleed photo look.  The Swallows won their first Championship that year, helped along by American slugger Charlie Manuel, and this set seems to have been released shortly thereafter.

I'm not sure if it was only released regionally, but it is definitely one of the hardest to find series of Calbee cards from the 70s out there and prices reflect this.  These five cards went for 82,100 Yen (almost 800$ US), so they are way out of my price range!

I've often wondered about who it is who lays out these huge wads of cash on relatively obscure Calbee cards from the 70s.  There are definitely some old set builders out there like me, but unlike me they have the money to throw around to actually build them (the sets I'm actively working on generally don't have any single card that is going to cost me more than 50-100$ max, otherwise I don't even bother trying to start the set!)

Most Beautiful Card?

I picked up another card I had been hunting for a while last week.  Its not one I need for a set I'm working on, but rather one that I have wanted because it just looks so damn good.

Its from the 1978 Calbee set, the Pennant Race series, and features Koichi Tabuchi taking a big swing against a Giants pitcher.  I ran across it in Yahoo Auction a few months ago and ended up losing that one.  But I couldn't get it out of my mind, its such an amazing photo - there is so much going on in it. You get the back of the umpire dead center in the image, which is odd but somehow works as he adds to the action between Tabuchi's swing and the pitcher coming off his throw.  The billboard in the stands and the mass of spectators is the perfect backdrop.  Its one of those cards that define everything I love about 1970s Calbee cards.  

Unfortunately the 1978s are kind of hard to find and it took a few months for another one to show up at auction.  I put a higher bid in this time and won it for 2100 Yen, which is a bit on the high side for me (especially for a card that isn't in a set I'm working on) but it was so worth it.  

I now have to decide if this displaces my previous "most beautiful 1970s Calbee card" at the top of the list: this Oh/Nagashima card from the 1974 set:

I can't really make up my mind on this one.  They are both so good....