C.A.: 2008 Upper Deck Kellogg's MLB Japan Takashi Saito

 (I didn't go to the card show. The idea of driving an hour away to wait outside the place until they let me in and then feeling a bit uneasy among the assorted people inside, all without enough sleep, didn't sound appealing. There will be others. Time for Cardboard Appreciation. This is the 302nd in a series):

This is the latest Japanese card in my collection.

It's from the 2008 Upper Deck Kellogg's set, a 10-card set marketed in Japan. That's about all I know about it.

 

It arrived from Shane, who officially joins the club of people who have sent me Japanese cards over the years. I don't specifically collect cards from Japan (or those issued in Japan) but it's pretty amazing how many I have and how different they are.

For example, the '08 Kellogg's one might be the most "American" Japanese card that I have. That's an American company logo on the front of the card and that's mostly a 2008 design from American baseball card company Upper Deck (whatever that font is, I don't like it. Looks like those hockey Trilogy cards, which also bug me).

There is your obligatory back with all of that fancy Japanese writing that I can't read.

 

There is something "right" about a Japanese card featuring a Japanese player and Saito joins Hideo Nomo as the only Dodgers Japanese players who I have on a Japanese card.

 

Let's quickly go through the history of my Japanese card acquisitions. I only have 25 or so, so it won't take long.

 

There were no Japanese cards in my collection for decades until I won this card of Cecil Fielder as a door prize in a card show around 2006, when I was just getting back into collecting.

I wrote about it in the very first months of the blog and I was informed that it was a 1989 Lotte card.

Given how I received this card and that it was the first in my collection, it's grown to mean a lot to me. Somebody once contacted me asking what I wanted for this card, but I don't think it's up for grabs.

 

Around 2013 or 2014, Kenny (aka "Zippy Zappy") started sending me Japanese Sega Card Gen cards from 2012/2013 that he picked up during his trips to Japan. He would even translate some of them for me.

These cards fascinated me, seeing stars of the Dodgers, in quite different photos and also different uniform styles, on a game-playing card.

 

Here is another video game card from MLB Power Pros of dominating closer Eric Gagne. 2005 was the beginning of the downturn, although the demise of his playing career is the least of his problems lately.

ZZ also sent me some black-bordered Bowman cards around this time from something called "Bowman Asia" which are (were?) cards shipped to Asia from the U.S. and opened over there with great fanfare.

Here are two players who turned out quite well for the Dodgers (Urias is doing very well as I write this). These cards are a lot more attractive than those white-bordered Bowmans. There were also Bowman Asia black refractors, which are quite cool, too.

No Japanese writing on the back, though.

Until this time just about all of my Japanese cards had come from sets that had been produced in the last decade or so. Leave it Dave to shatter that trend with the oldest Japanese card I now own.

This 1967 Kabaya-Leaf card, which I received in 2016, is really a jewel in my collection. The pose if fantastic, it's presented on a 1959 Topps design theme and it's a night card with light banks beaming in the background. Best Japanese card in my collection? Just plain one of the best cards in my collection period.

Tatsuri Yamanaka is not the only Japanese night card in the collection though.

 

Good ol' BBM. Here is one from 1992 and one from 2017. I especially enjoy that the '92 BBM card has gone meta by announcing all over the border that it is a baseball card.

 

Ever since 2013 or so I have been averaging about one Japanese card per year from fellow senders (you'd think I'd try to acquire one of these myself). And in 2019 I received my first Topps Kanebo card.

 

 These 2003 cards fascinate me because they look so much like the Topps U.S. version ...

 

But they are not ...

Please note that the height and weight are in the metric system.

Among my favorite Japanese cards are ones of Hideo Nomo from before he arrived in the major leagues. I can only imagine how many of those cards there are. I only have two of his Japanese rookie cards from 1991:

There are six different Nomo rookie cards in the 1991 BBM set because that's how the '90s were, whether you lived in the United States or Japan. These cards are a lot of fun to have. Many thanks to Billy for sending them to me.

Nomo was pretty much the biggest global baseball star that I owned from a Japanese set until Dave struck again last year.

 

 He sent a 1975 menko card of superstar Sadaharu Oh! What a glorious little item this is and it kept my streak alive of receiving at least one Japanese card per year since 2013.

It also meant that I had a Japanese card from the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s and '10s!

And now we're in 2021 and the individually wrapped Takashi Saito Kellogg's Japan card has arrived at my door.

I like that I have a blog that allows me to sample cards from a number of different areas, whether it's from Japan or Venezuela or Canada, whether it's from the '40s, '60s or '80s, whether it's mini-sized or oversized, whether it's a coin or a postage stamp, I'll try anything. I do have specific set-collecting, Dodger-collecting and '70s-collecting tastes and the bulk of my collection is that.

But it's stuff like above that makes me a well-rounded card collector and I think that's best.

Thanks for opening up my world.

(I guess, as usual, that took longer than I thought it would).