Vintage Japanese Set Builders: Complain Here
 

I'm working on a number of Japanese vintage sets - basically Calbee and Yamakatsu sets from the 70s and 80s. My biggest project at the moment is the 1975-76 Calbee set. Its a beautiful set, but also a nightmare to put together. Get this:

1472 cards in the set (#ed 1 to 1436, but 36 numbers have two completely different versions with completely different players). I think this makes it the largest baseball card set ever issued (at least in terms of how high the numbers go).

Cards were initially sold in 1 card packs attached to bags of potato chips, so the print run wasn't huge to begin with and unless you bought thousands of bags of chips it would have been impossible to complete a set back in the day. In the past 40 years I am guessing that less than 10 people around the world have actually completed it (only 2 that I know of).

2 series in the set were only sold in bags of chips in the mid-sized city of Hiroshima. These are insanely rare and most of them are simply not available for sale anywhere online at any given time (though they pop up now and then).


Another series was only issued in the (slightly larger) city of Nagoya. Also rare and hard to find.

As with vintage American cards from the 50s, they were just considered toys for kids so most either got thrown away or only exist in damaged condition today. The modern hobby really didn't arrive in Japan until the 90s.


And despite all of that, this probably isn't even the most difficult Japanese set from the 70s to put together!

I just picked up 9 of the Hiroshima regional issues, which puts me over 900 different cards towards the set. I figure it will take me another 20 years to finish it. https://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspo...75-76%20Calbee

Anybody else out there putting together tough Japanese sets and want to complain (I know a couple who are, but I think we are a rare breed)?

Sean just a curious question that i think you have addressed before in an earlier post.

Where do you find cards? Can you go to Hiroshima and look through what we call "junk shops" or flea markets? I am guessing that there are few if any card shops in the entire country.

If 76 calbee isn t the hardest set of the decade, what is?

These days I get most of my cards through Yahoo Auctions Japan, which is kind of Japan's equivalent of Ebay.


There are actually a fair number of baseball card shops here though (unfortunately none that are convenient for me, though I used to frequent a couple when I lived in a different city). Dave wrote some interesting posts about his visit to card shops in Japan on his blog here which makes for interesting reading/photos:

http://japanesebaseballcards.blogspo...l/Card%20Shops

They also pop up in second hand stores and at flea markets, like this one:

https://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspo...pected-of.html

But that is kind of exceptional! I've never been to a card show here either and am not sure if they exist in Japan.

One could make the argument that the 1973 set is harder. On the one hand it has way fewer cards (368). And like the 75-76 set it has some really hard to find regional issues, which seem to be slightly rarer but not too much so.

But I think more people are collecting that one, partly because it is a more realistic project (due to the fewer cards) and partly because it is more "iconic" being the first Calbee set and featuring some famous cards, like Nagashima's card #1 which is sort of the Japanese version of a 52 Mantle. The result is that even though I think the 73s are probably only slightly rarer than the 75-76s (and that would vary a lot depending on the series), the prices are way higher, especially for the rare regional issues.

I was able to score the 9 Hiroshima regional issues for the 75-76 set at 1,000 Yen each for example, but that I think was just because I lucked out since nobody else happened to be looking for them at the same time. When 1973 rarities go up for auction on the other hand, everyone pays attention and the prices go way higher. You'll never get your hands on those for 1000 Yen each (unless of course they are real beaters or something).