Japanese Card Info Needed
 

Hello all. I need some info on this card (?). Who is it, what year, rarity and price. ANY help would be greatly appreciated. It's 3.5" H, blank back and cardboard like a cheap drink coaster.
Thanks in advance,
Tony

1948 Menko "Flower Edge"

Thanks, that's exactly it. 1948 Menko Flower Edge (JDM5), Tokuji Kawasaki. Now I just need a value if anyone has that info.

No value from me, besides the counterclockwise tipping of the image.

Brian

Gary Engle's book has it listed in top grade at $90. While the book is a treasure trove of good information, I have often been able to pick up cards at significantly less than the listed price.

Thanks guys, great info!

Depends on the card. Sadaharu Oh and some of the American HOFers often sell for much more.

As an example, I just got this Menko Jackie Robinson back from PSA, and they upcharged me to a $5k grading fee for it. Yes, just the grading fee. Not the card's valuation. They said "it's worth at least $250k". Yet Engle's "book value" is listed at just $4k. Who knows what it would fetch at auction, but it's definitely not a $4k card. PSA 1s and 2s sell for $30k and $40k.

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Travis - congrats on that amazing Jackie! Glad someone on here won it.

Wow.

4 or 5 years ago that Robinson could be picked up here in Japan for maybe 2,000 dollars. I had no idea the value had gone so high.

Kind of annoying as a set collector who has most of that set except for that one….

Engel prices are hit and miss, though that is unavoidable in most cases given how rarely a lot of these cards come to market and how rapidly prices on big ticket items can swing.

Thanks! Ya, pretty lucky find. I love this card.

It seems to have really skyrocketed over the past few years, along with most anything Jackie related, but this card more so than others. Probably because of the rarity.

Sales from this past year and a half are a PSA 1 = $28.8k, a PSA 2 did $37k, and a PSA 3 did $40k.

I've already had an offer of $250k for this PSA 8. But I'm not planning to sell it :)

....they charged $5k to put it in a slab? What did they do differently than a regular card??

It was an upcharge. They said it was worth at least $250k and that if I wanted it returned in the slab, I would have to pay the "appropriate" $5k grading fee. :mad:

Otherwise they'd send it back to me ungraded and keep the original grading fee that I paid for the submission.

Holy cow. That's highway robbery. Or something.
I thought surely SGC would be cheaper, but according to their pricing, it's $3750 for a $100k card, and another $375 for each $10k after that. If I did the math right, that'd be almost $10k in grading fees for your card???

I'm not sure where this higher cost is justified - maybe if they were guaranteeing the accuracy of the grade and this helps covers their liability, but that's not quite how it works.

SGC doesn't give these Japanese Menko cards numeric grades. They said they won't designate them as "Hand Cut" like PSA does. They would only authenticate it. They sent me some article that explains how they were distributed as their reasoning, saying there is no way for them to distinguish between the ones that were hand cut and the ones that came in the little paper envelopes on a string. I gladly would have kept it in the SGC holder, but I really had no choice. It's worth pennies on the dollar as an authentic vs a numeric grade. My grading fee at SGC was only $500 because they didn't upcharge me.

PSA doesn't need to justify the upcharge. It's a pure money grad and they know we'll pay it. That's all there is to it.

So you paid SGC $500, and then sent it to PSA for another $5k? Ouch. I just saw the original auction, and that guy keeps finding great stuff.

Curious and worried about what you said about SGC - I just sent them a box of menkos, since it seemed they were more knowledgable (or at least was handling more) than PSA. I see other menko cards they’ve given numeric grades to…..did they change their policy??

Value is more in yen than dollars.