Engel has catalogued twenty cards in this set, which he rates an R4 (fewer than 10 known copies of each card in existence), so its possible there are more. As you can see, I have eight of them, including some HOFers like Shigeru Chiba and Fujio Fujimura.
One thing I like about the set is that though crude the artwork is far superior to the photography in contemporary Calbee sets. You've got players in a variety of poses, doing a variety of things against a variety of backgrounds. Quite refreshing compared to the monotony of all photos on modern Calbee cards being more or less carbon copies of each other.
The people who made this set were doing so in a Japan that was economically devastated, suffering from widespread malnutrition and whose cities had just been reduced to rubble by a massive bomber campaign just two years earlier. If they could make an interesting set in those conditions, Calbee today really has no excuses.
Anyway, the reason I haven't added many vintage menko to my collection these days is simply that the explosion in prices in the US card market has spread to Japan and I've been priced out of the market on most of the stuff that comes up on Yahoo Auctions for the past 18 months or so. Its been frustrating because there has been a lot of stuff come up for sale that I would have been able to snap up back in 2020, but which these days easily sell for 5 times more than what they used to, sometimes more. These ones somehow slipped through the cracks and didn't get much attention, so I was able to pay 2020 prices for them. This might be the last addition to my menko collection for a while, barring either a complete collapse in the market or me winning a lottery (which is a particular long shot since I don't buy lottery tickets).
Also, since I mentioned Engel's guide I should mention that he recently put out a 3rd edition which I recently purchased. If you collect vintage Japanese cards I'd say it is worth picking up the new edition, he's added a fair number of new cards to it (and if you don't have the old edition you absolutely should get it).
