New 1931 Set Discovered

[seanofjapan]

I made an exciting find earlier this week. I picked up this Japanese menko card of Frankie Frisch from an antique dealer in Yamagata prefecture. It features him during the 1931 MLB all star tour of Japan, which also featured Lou Gehrig, Mickey Cochrane, Lefty Grove, Rabbit Maranville and a few other stars.

Two Japanese sets of bromides from that tour have previously been identified, but no menko ones have until now (just FYI menko are a Japanese card game and manyJapanese cards prior to the 1970s were menko). As far as I can tell this is the only known copy of any card from this set still in existence, though its possible there are more out there waiting to be found, maybe even a Gehrig.

I did a bit more of a write up about my find here:
https://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspo...discovery.html

[Leon]

Congrats! Neat discovery.

[rhettyeakley]

That is super cool! Another type to add to the list!

[brianp-beme]

Not very familiar with Japanese sets, but this seems like it would be a major find, being that no others from this set have ever been identified. Congrats!

How thorough is the cataloguing of Japanese sets? Is it at a similar level as what is seen here?

Brian

[leftygrove10]

Awesome discovery! Congratulations!

[MINES_MINT]

Congratulations on a very cool find. However, I believe the subject of the card you have discovered is not Frankie Frisch but rather Tom Oliver who was also a member of that 1931 team.



Based on the source image you shared on your website Tom Oliver bears more of a resemblance to the subject in question (note the nose and dimples) who in my opinion lacks Frisch's more distinct features

[seanofjapan]

Oooh, that is an interesting point.

The Japanese text on that card from my blog specifically says it is Frisch. If you look on the top right side of the banner it says "フリッシュ君” which is "Mr. Frisch" (Furishu Kun). On the left it says "二塁手” which means "Second baseman". Frisch played second, Oliver was an outfielder.

I guess its possible they might have accidentally used a picture of a different player, but its hard to reach that conclusion. Looking around at photos of both of them from their playing days I really can’t say which it looks more like (though there are a lot more photos of Frisch to go on out there). Half his face is in shadow on the card which makes it a bit tricky. Its true that it doesn't jump out and say "this is Frisch" but at the same time I don't see anything that rules it out as being Frisch (or anything that rules it out as being Oliver, at least from the photo alone).

Anyone else have an opinion?

[nat]

"How thorough is the cataloguing of Japanese sets? Is it at a similar level as what is seen here?"


No. Gary Engel does a heroic job cataloguing Japanese sets, but American catalogues are far more complete. The basic problem (besides a generally less well-developed hobby) is that a huge number of vintage Japanese sets were made, each of which was produced in (usually) very small quantities. Sean's collection is much larger than mine is, and I have a number of cards that are from otherwise-unknown sets. Finding cards from new sets happens with some regularity (Sean in particular seems to have a knack for it).

But there are a few reasons that this is a particularly exciting find. First, it's pre-war. Very few pre-war Japanese cards have survived. (I don't have any.) So finding _any_ pre-war Japanese card is pretty exciting. Second, it's very different than any known set. Like I said, new sets get discovered fairly regularly, but most of them are minor variations on one another. As far as I know, this one isn't. And finally, it's an American hall of famer. These cards were produced for kids in Japan, and kids' interests was naturally in the local players, so relatively few cards of Americans were produced. (Basically, like this one, only related to the tours of American players in Japan.) And, of course, it's Frisch. So Sean really hit the perfecto on new finds here.

As for who is on the card: it does look like Tom Oliver, but the caption above the Japanese card displayed says that it's Frisch. (source) Maybe others are, but I'm not good enough with faces to prefer my judgment over the caption on the card.

[seanofjapan]

Thanks Nat! Its a pretty cool find, isn’t it? In addition to featuring a US player another odd feature is that it uses a photo, almost all pre 50s menko I have ever seen use drawings of the players instead.

I agree about the cataloguing, the Engel’s guide is absolutely great but there are still a fair number of uncatalogued sets out there still being discovered, especially pre 1950 stuff.

Its also worth noting that the only guide for anything pre 1973 here is Engel, which is written in English. There is still no Japanese language equivalent for collectors here to use.