Sadaharu Oh

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by Frankish

Thanks, that was a cool read.

Since I have your attention and you are much more knowledgeable than me, I wanted to ask your thoughts on the total populations of these cards.

For instance this 1965 Furikake Oh card. I have a copy (and am not a serious collector) and you have one...I'd be inclined to think that here are hundreds out there. Maybe fewer than five have been reported at some central forum or registry, but could it just be that vintage card collecting never had the same devotion in Japan that it had in the US? If prices make it worthwhile, I'd expect some enterprising Japanese dealers to start unearthing pretty significant quantities.

Also in this thread, the OP has a copy of the '59 pitcher-back Oh rookie card. I also have that card and saw another one sell at auction last week. Could it really be as rare as reported?

I don't mean to be flippant, am just genuinely curious as I've only gotten into Japanese cards in the past couple of years. My general opinion on this evolved from the large number of Engel's rated R5 cards that I've picked up in that time. Admittedly, there might not be much of a market for some, especially the lesser known names, but I find it hard to believe I have one of only four or five known copies of so many cards. I've found half a dozen in the last two weeks.

Anyway, hope you don't mind the inquiry. I'm not sure where else to ask!

This is a good point and why I'm always careful to say "known to exist" rather than "exist" when mentioning Engel's rarity ratings.

I basically agree with what Nat says - its probably better to view those ratings as a spectrum rather than a statement of how many of a card actually exist. I don't doubt that Engel has an extensive knowledge and has done way more research into this than anyone else, and is doing his best to provide this information honestly and accurately, but giving such precise numbers for the rarest cards, particularly the top two ratings (R5 = 5 or fewer known, R4 = 10 or fewer) seems problematic given the limited knowledge we have of how many actually exist as opposed to just how many are known to exist.

Like with the Sadaharu Oh menko we both have a copy of. The guide says there are 5 or fewer known copies out there. But I have no idea if my copy is one of the 5 (or fewer) Engel knew about when he wrote that, or if it is a new discovery and I guess you are the same in that regard. So between us we might have just added 2 copies to the known ones out there, which could be enough to drop it from an R5 to an R4 but we have no way of knowing if that is the case. So its quite unreliable in that regard, given the developing nature of finds like that. But at the same time, if you interpret it simply as a measure of relative scarcity I think it is quite accurate - these cards are genuinely scarce.

Another issue which you mention is that we don't know exactly how many more of these are out there in Japan waiting to be unearthed. I think Engel's rarity guide is fairly accurate in terms of how many have made their way to the US market (where it is possible to keep pretty accurate tabs on the cards entering the market since there are pretty limited avenues). But one problem is that in Japan the market for vintage cards is still not mature like it is in the US. I'd say it probably resembles the situation in the US in the 70s when people were first becoming aware that old cards were worth something and stashes were still being dug up.

Evidence of this comes from my own collection. The vast majority of my vintage Japanese menko did not come from card dealers. I got almost all of them from general antique dealers who had no idea what they were selling. They just gather up old junk from estates or whatever people bring them, then break them up into lots and sell them. So most of the cards I get are being sold to me by guys who are also selling old kimonos, books or woodblock prints. The cards are therefore pretty much all new to the baseball card collecting market, which is not something you ever see in the US since everybody knows old cards are worth a lot. So finds of cards are still happenning right now. Its not by any means a daily event, these lots are hard to come by, but they do still exist and its definitely possible that within the next month I might find a lot with an R5 card in it or something, which will raise these questions.