Identifying Japanese Bromides (Starffin, Kawakami et al)

[Schlesinj]

I would suggest looking at Prestige Collectibles (who is a member here) and also his auction site. I suspect you may be able cross reference some pictures with it.

[Kawika]

Robert Klevens of Prestige Auctions is a walking encyclopedia of Japanese baseball. Speaks the language which has to help immensely. I have acquired dozens of funky items from him over the years. His table at the National is always a must for me. He's also authored a couple of reference books on the subject which might be helpful. He's a super-nice guy to boot. Good luck with your efforts.

Here's a couple of bromides I have plus a few of the aforementioned funky items.





Mayhem on the basepath, 1930s menko


Shonen premium Kaoru Betto

[LazyMF]

Getting a .pdf copy of the Engel Vintage Guide 2.1 will be essential. Prestige Collectibles sells them.

The bromides are the most difficult Japanese cards to identify. Many, many sets are uncatalogued. Figuring our which of your cards are catalogued is also difficult. The card measurements are important, but difficult to work with because Engel provides the measurements only in inches, with most of them fractioned. The cards were usually produced by rounded centimeters (I wish Engel would change this). Also, the Google Translate phone app is usually good for using your phone camera to decipher the text on cards, but many of the bromides use handwritten characters (rather than typed), have very small print, and have black print on very dark backgrounds, making the app useless.

Good luck and keep us posted with your progress.

[nolemmings]

Starffin is pretty recognizable, and his follow-through pose was popular. Here's one of mine:

[prestigecollectibles]

That looks like a great collection of cards. It seems that you have the correct names listed. There are three Starffin cards on that page. If you have larger scans I could read the other names.

Identifying which set they come from is quite a task. There are many bromides not listed in Gary's guide. Also there are many bromides that look similar, but the size or text could be different making it difficult to figure what set they belong to.

[Frankish]

Thanks for all the feedback!

LazyMF I have the Engel's checklist. And you are right, it is indispensable. Still, so many bromide sets aren't in there and, even those that are, are a challenge for me to identify sometimes. But that's what makes it interesting....

Robert, thanks for offering your help. Here are better pics (hopefully) of the three players I'm least sure of. The first I simply don't know. The second I think is Shigematsu and the third Naito but am not sure.

Thanks!

[prestigecollectibles]

I think they are all from 1947
Tsuneo Mitomi 三富恒雄　- Stars
Michio Shigematsu　重松通雄 - Stars
Kozo Naito　内藤幸三 - Stars