A while back, Ryan of SumoMenkoMan fame sent me a box of sealed hockey packs...which I didn't get a chance to write about due to various things. Then, a few weeks ago now, he sent me a box of various hockey cards! The loose cards apparently came from his visit with Fuji, so I'll just thank them both here. Since I'm finally getting scanning again, I've been able to get some of them scanned, so I can finally post about them...since I'm so backlogged, and since I've only opened a couple of packs from the bounty he sent, I'm combining them into one post.
First, the box of packs:
At least a couple of these are sets not present in my collection...every single one of them is a set I've never opened a single pack from! Wow! I've only opened two of the packs so far...the rest are still sitting next to me, waiting for their turn. (and waiting for me to scan them- I need to do that before I open them).
Every one of them had a price tag, which I carefully removed...and stuck to the box. (for lack of any place better to stick them)
As if that wasn't cool enough, a few weeks later- I'm a little scatterbrained on exactly when he sent the box of packs, since I didn't count them until I opened them, not when I got the box- another surprise box shows up, this time containing loose cards in a plastic case and more packs, this time 2017-18 BBM B.League Japanese basketball cards! I showed the back of them already, so I'll post a front here since I forgot to before.
Of the cards he sent, I got a bunch of new ones, and even a couple sets I didn't have previously...including one that he sent me a pack of but I hadn't opened yet!
Here are just a couple of the many highlights:
My first card from 1999-00 Topps Chrome, the hockey version!
My first card from this year's McDonald's set
My first base card from 2011-12 SP Authentic
I don't have much from 2004-05 season, the lockout year.
This Throwbacks set is awesome. He sent me two, bringing my grand total from the set to three cards.
My records show I have another card from this set, but I don't remember the design at all. I still have a lot left to scan though.
I just like the design of the 2000-02 Stadium Club set for NHL. I like this more than the NBA design of the same year, which I also like.
Yes, I started thinking the Grease theme song after getting this one...
Here's the promised B.League front. I think I might like the 2017-18 set more than 2016-17, as it is team color coded, something I always like. The only cards I have in my collection from the set came from the packs he sent me, which I didn't count, but was at least 5 from each series. (or half, as BBM calls them)
Thanks again Ryan, and sorry it took me so long to get a thank-you post written! It's been well over a month now, I need to work on being better at thanking people in a timely manner. I know I thanked you in a direct message, but that's poor blogger etiquette on my part. There's so much more I could post, but don't want to hold up the post any longer.
SumoMenkoMan has sent me a lot of Japanese cards. I really appreciate that because I would have pretty much zero chance of getting them otherwise. But I couldn't read them. Luckily, and somewhat confusingly, the team and player names are in English on the basketball cards...but I couldn't read the backs at all.
Until now!
Yesterday, my brother got a new phone, nearly identical to mine. He was the first in the family to have a smart phone and it's dying, so it was time to upgrade. When he was checking out his new one last night, we saw an icon on the camera screen and didn't know what it was, so naturally, he clicked on it. As it turns out, it's something called Google Lens, and it has a few options. You can place it over food to find out more information (something I've not used yet), over products or images to pull them up on sales sites or a general Google search, it can copy text, and on the far left of the icons- Translate.
My first thought was about cards. I ran and grabbed my phone, and I had it too. So then I went and got one of the latest cards Ryan had sent me and tried it out! It's not perfect...but it's a heck of a lot better than it was before!
This is a regular picture taken with the camera on the phone
This is a screencap of Google Lens. As you can see, it works pretty well but not perfect...it translated Brave Thunders as Brave Sanders, I'm not sure what Students should be in the bio area, and it gets the nouns a little confused (we don't refer to people as It) but this is a FAR cry better than it was before! When I could read nothing. Interestingly, it didn't translate the stat headers, but they were printed in English anyway.
I've actually got half a mind to go in and screencap each and every one of my international issues- not just the Japanese cards. I've also got cards from Germany, Belgium, and others, although the vast majority of untranslated cards are Japanese.
This is a pretty cool tool to have, now I need to get out some of my world coins and see if it can translate them...
When I came home from my short stay in Massachusetts, I was greeted with 9 packages of cards waiting for me! Some were trades, which I will detail in my March trade recap, but a pretty monumental one was included- my 100th documented trade on the Trading Card Database!
For today though I want to focus on the gifts that I received. This hobby is filled with some incredibly generous people, but that's no secret! The most surprising packages though, came from people in my other main hobby- scale model building.
The first package I had to open was from my friend Tom, who runs the world's largest scale model show, which is next month. I wasn't expecting anything from him but this was waiting for me in the mailer! It turns out he inherited them and knowing I collect cards, sent them to me! I was pretty shocked. The Mike Wagner is a nice mis-cut error as well, which is great!
The next package is from my friend Pat, who sort of collects cards but not to the degree I do. I think the only set he works on every year is the Tim Horton's Hockey set. I wasn't expecting anything from him, but the box was big and I could tell by the weight that it was going to be good. I was not wrong!
What do I see when I open it up but a factory sealed 1993 Maxx factory set! WOW! This is something I've been wanting for a long time- way back in 2015 I mentioned wanting this specific factory set and I had wanted it a long time before then. I was thrilled with this alone, but that wasn't all that was in the box...
Below the factory set was a box of mixed cards, with some NASCAR that turned out mostly to be duplicates (the Mark Martin shown, from 1995 Action, was new) and a huge stack of 1953-54 Topps World on Wheels! My favorite automotive set ever! I had a bunch of these to begin with, but I was able to add 16 to my collection from this group, including my first card of the Henry J and Cartercar brands!
I have not scanned any of them yet but I have an automotive themed post in the pipeline...probably a month or so away from it, which, knowing me, probably means I'll publish it in December, lol.
I was totally surprised by those two mailings, but there were a couple of mailings I was expecting as well.
BobFetta, on the Trading Card Database, offered to send me these 9 car cards just because. I put up a post on the BST section looking for car cards, and he had these. So he sent them to me!
I didn't have any from the 1991 Panini Dream Cars set previously!
The last package that I opened- that was a big one.
Shane of Shoebox Legends dumped another load of his unwanted/rejects on me, and I'm thrilled to have them! I cut off the left side row- which is one teambag lengthwise wide- oops! I only opened one team bag so far, but I already added several dozen new cards and 2 people to my NHL collection from it! I am not sure when I will get to sorting all these out- it may be a while- but I am truly grateful that Shane has chosen me to be the recipient of them. This is the second one of these large priority boxes Shane has sent me in the past few months, and I have been slacking on opening them and looking at the cards- I'm so backlogged. And that's a good thing!
Although I thanked him on Twitter, Gavin of Shoebox Legends also sent me a box that size back in January, which I don't recall if I mentioned in a post or not. I don't think I did because I didn't crop out the box flaps until writing this post. Sorry for the delay in getting it mentioned on the blog proper, Gavin!
(sorry for the stinky picture)
Since I'm doing a thank you post, just yesterday I got a package from SumoMenkoMan that I will delve into further in the future- but I will get a couple shots up here now.
He sent me the entire Japanese National Team set he profiled in his most recent post!
And a whole bunch of packs, including those shown here. I have not a single card from two of these sets, and I have never opened a pack of the Pro Set NHRA release- though I do have a bunch of the cards from it. 1994 Press Pass NASCAR is a set that I have fond memories of. I got a bunch when new but am still 20 cards away from completion. Maybe I will get some of them in this pack? I don't know as I have not opened it yet.
One other pack- which I should have included in the photo but opened it before I could- was the Masters of the Universe set from Topps. For a very brief time in my life I was a huge fan of this show. But, then it got replaced by other things- mostly GI Joe- and I never watched the TV show or even looked at the action figures again. Still, I'm surprised I never got any of these cards before this. The cards feature screencaps from the cartoon with comic-style word bubbles on them. I still have the figures, locked away deep in storage.
Thank you to all of the people mentioned in the post! The gifts I received made up part of the largest card mailday I've ever had.
Here's probably the most unusual Box Break Review I've posted...after all, it's not too often I break a box where I can't read the cards!
Just back on December 28th I mentioned in a post that I didn't think there were any cards issued for Japan's professional basketball leagues, where hometown player Hilton Armstrong now plays. Then, just a few days later, I was reading the blog Japanese Sumo Wresting Cards & Menko and what do I see but a preview of this very set! I left a comment on his blog and shortly thereafter we had a deal in place to get me a box of the set. The box arrived this past Saturday and I enjoyed every second of it, even though I had one little bit of disappointment which I will mention below.
The B.League is the main professional basketball league in Japan, and 2016-17 is the first season. It came about due to some interesting history and controversy, which is well covered on the Wikipedia page, so if you want to learn more I suggest clicking on the Wikipedia link in this paragraph. I believe that the B. in B.League stands for "basketball".
It is composed of 18 teams and follows the FIBA rules. One thing I find...interesting...is that they limit the number of non Japanese players on the court at any time. I can't say I really like that...but I am not totally familiar with the rules of national leagues in other countries so I don't know if that's the norm. I have never really researched it because Japan is now only the second country (after the USA) to have a card set issued for it's top professional basketball league that made it's way to my collection. (Australia, China, South Korea and the Philippines also got sets issued) I notice that none of the players on the box lid are non-Japanese. I can understand them doing that to make sure the league is Japan-centric and not just players who didn't make it in the NBA D-League. Japan's biggest known name outside of Japan is Yuta Tabuse who is front and center on the box, wearing #0 in black. Tabuse is the only Japanese player to have ever gotten a card before, from his brief time as a member of the NBA's Phoenix Suns, he's one of only three players in the entire set who had ever gotten a card before. (Hilton Armstrong and Josh Harrellson are the others). I'm not sure who the biggest stars of the teams are, because I have no way to find out anything about the league other than through these very cards...and I can't actually read the card backs, so if they say, I don't know. Each team has a player on the box front which is a cropped down version of their base card image so I suppose it's implied they are the best players on their team.
Another thing I find interesting is that the teams accept sponsorships. That's not something seen in the basketball I am familiar with but I don't dislike it. As a longtime fan of auto racing sponsorships are second nature to me.
OK, now onto the cards! The cards are color-coded to each team, with the backs featuring bright team colors. The fronts all have a black border with a white "paint splatter" design. The team color is a pinstripe border separating the photo from the border, and the player's name is also in team color. The colors are varied. Red is the most predominant but you see some colors not usually seen in the NBA...like pink.
Here's a card front from each of the 18 teams.
Each of the 18 teams got 4 cards in the 72 card base set. One thing you don't see often is that the position the player plays is fully spelled out. I don't know of any other professional set that breaks it down between Point Guards and Shooting Guards, they all just list G for Guard. (for example) That's a nice touch, as is including the player's jersey number, which is not always visible on photos, though I selected sample images from each team that showed the jersey the best.
Luckily, for me, the fronts of the cards are all in English because the backs are pretty much totally in Japanese!
Here's Hilton Armstrong's card:
I have absolutely no idea what that says...although I see several references to his NBA career. I know he played 292 NBA games so I am sure there is a reference to that on the card back, but that's about it.
All the backs have posed player photos, which gives it a nice uniform look across the entire set. I suspect that they are from the league's version of "media day" before the season began. Considering that this is the league's first season, I think that they must have gotten these cards made fairly quickly, although it is possible the photos are from last season, as each team existed before this season in one of two different leagues.
The cards themselves have a nice feel to them. They are glossy but not "sticky" or "greasy" feeling. I am a little afraid that they may stick together in the future. They are very well made, but that is not a surprise to me as BBM is as far as I know the top card producer in Japan. It is the first cards from the company in my collection. The photography is excellent. Excellently timed action photos, clear images that give you an impression of the game. Well done. The photography selection process must have had a lot of thought put into it as it appears an effort was made to make sure each person was the sole focus of their card- most don't have any other players in the background and even less in the foreground. They also mostly feature the color jerseys, instead of the standard white, which I wasn't even sure the teams wore until I spotted some in the backgrounds. It appears at least a couple of the teams also have third jerseys because the Happinets appear in pink, white and black jerseys on the cards.
My one disappointment: the duplicates. There were 29 of them in my box. That's not that bad...but...I came up 12 cards short on the base set. I always feel disappointed when I get more duplicates than I get cards missing from the set, especially when I get more than double the amount of cards missing. And especially when it's a rare set that will be hard to find someone to trade my duplicates with. It's not my worst results by any means (that would be a box of 1991-92 Skybox Series II where I came up 5 cards short and got more than 200 duplicates!) Finding those final 12 cards is going to be very difficult. There were several packs where every card was a duplicate. However, it wasn't like Panini where if you get duplicates you know every card was going to be the same in the pack. There were several with 1 new card and 4 duplicates and at least one with 2 new cards and three duplicates.
Here's a gif I made of the front of all 60 of the base cards I got:
And here's one for the backs. If anyone wants to take a crack at translating any of these, I would really appreciate it! I have tried to teach myself Japanese numbers and failed, so actual words probably would be even tougher.
Now, onto the inserts. There were only two in the set.
On Fire is the only traditional insert, and is 18 cards. It features one player from each team. While it's not really shown in the scans, each card has a holographic star pattern built into the card, which is visible through the photo. It's really nicely done. The back of the card shows the original unedited image. I got 5 of the 18 cards in this insert set.
This scan shows the star design the best
The most common insert is Authentic Autographed Card, or more commonly called, the autographs. I pulled 6 of them from my box, and all are serially numbered to 115 copies.
Here are all six. I pulled my first in the second pack I opened and they kept coming until the very last pack.
Every one of the 72 players in the set has an autograph. All of the ones I pulled had the player's jersey number included in the autograph. My favorite of them here is the last shown, Yutaka Yokoe, because his is the only one clearly signed in the Japanese letter forms. Note that each card is embossed on the bottom left. All autographs are large clear stickers.
The backs of the autographs feature more text I can't read but they are identical, it's clearly part of the standard "Congratulations" Certificate of Authenticity that is found on most autographs of American cards. They each feature the serially numbering in the same location in thin gold foiling. As you can see, I managed to pull serial #1 of JR Sakuragi! As someone who loves to get cards SN1 of something I was pretty happy about that.
Even with the duplicate to missing card ratio, I really had a lot of fun opening this box. As a fan of the sport it was fun to get to add cards from a professional league that is mostly unfamiliar to me, and I learned a little bit about the history of basketball in Japan in the process.
Every single team made it's first appearance in my collection, and I was able to add 61 new people to my collection, which was pretty easily accomplished as my first cards from the entire country.
A big thanks to Ryan (SumoMenkoMan) for his assistance in this post and helping me get the cards in the first place. I've got a box of 2nd Half on order and will be curious to see if they continue the numbering system like a true series 2 or start over with #1. I suspect that they will continue the numbering as the base cards all have a 0 in front of the number- they've clearly built in space for a set more than 100 cards.
This was a really fun break for me and I hope you enjoyed reading it. I will be also breaking down an individual pack on A Pack to Be Named Later shortly.
I was also able to find a highlight video on YouTube from the league, but there is not much on there...or at least not much I am finding with my solely English language search.
