So I'm pretty sure I've identified a new Shigeo Nagashima rookie card. Some context - Shiegeo Nagashima, "Mr. Giants," is arguably the most popular player in NPB history, and many view him as the greatest player in Japanese baseball. He famously hit a homerun to win the game that was the first game ever that the emperor of Japan had visited. He also formed half of the famous O-N team with Oh batting 3rd and Nagashima batting 4th in the lineup, to great success. He earned MVP 5 times, and one of the "Best Nine" awards each year that he played. His number 3 Jersey was retired, and he was put in their Hall of Fame in 1988.
That being said....Japanese baseball cards are a different type of collectable from American cards. First off, the market hasn't quite found them yet. Second, many of these players have *dozens* of rookie cards. So many different small sets issued in a given year, with many of them featuring many different poses/cards of the same player. So...any find isn't super valuable, even if it's only 1 of a few known to collectors, or even the only copy known to collectors.
With that in mind....I think I might have found a new rookie card for Nagashima, and I'm even more impressed that it's in decent shape (a lot of Japanese cards are *really* beat up), and is an awesome pose:
So, according to my research, I believe this to be a card from
JCM 66b: 1957 Maruya B&W Chain Menko Type 1. In Gary Engel's catalogue, the only other real option I see is Type 2, but that back is supposed to be a very light grey color, and mine matches Type 1 which is a dark black/blue print. And this card set is listed as the rarest type (R5), the level designating cards having less than 5 known copies in the world. And this specific set is further described as having too few known cards to even bother listing in the guide:
One issue, though, is that if I'm right, the date of this set should probably be adjusted to 1958, as Nagashima didn't start playing NPB until April 1958.
But anyway, I wanted to share this find (and see if anyone had more knowledge than I do). This is one of the reasons why I find collecting Japanese menkos so interesting - you never know what you're going to find. The guide/catalogue is still an early work-in-progress. Collectors have yet to figure out what all was released, so it's an exciting time to help figure it all out.