Shohei Ohtani - Japanese BBM 2013 1st Version "Wing" Rookie Cards

Shohei Ohtani is having another great year and I thought it might be a good idea to dust this post off and update it slightly for accuracy. Ohtani's Japanese rookie cards often get overlooked or ignored by many collectors because of the difficulty in understanding the Japanese baseball card market.  BBM, much like Topps, is the dominate company distributing baseball cards in Japan and has been producing baseball cards since 1991.  There are numerous other collectors out there that are much more knowledgeable than me on Japanese baseball cards, but I wanted to highlight Ohtani's first true rookie cards from the 2013 Japanese BBM 1st Version Set.  This is the first regular BBM set that features Ohtani (not counting the Rookie Edition set) and features 11 different cards based on the iconic #183 pitching image!  BBM calls their releases 1st Version and 2nd Version which is comparable to Topps Series 1 and Series 2.  Check out my YouTube video at the very end!

2013 BBM 1st Version Box

This is the box that could land you the following cards:

* Red Wing #183 - Base

* Red Wing #183 - Silver Foil Signature

* Red Wing #183 - Gold Foil Signature #ed to 100

* Red Wing #183 - Holo Foil Signature #ed to 50

* Red Wing #183 - Red Foil Signature #ed to 25

* Red Wing #183 - Blue Foil Signature #ed to 1

* Green Wing  #183 - Rookie Foil #ed to 100

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2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Base

Ohtani's most popular and iconic rookie card.

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2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Silver Foil Signature

Affordable silver facsimile signature parallel that is unnumbered. (Photo courtesy of YJA)

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2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Gold Foil Signature #ed/100

Spendy gold facsimile signature parallel numbered to 100.  Difficult to find. (Photo courtesy of YJA)

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2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Holo Foil Signature #ed/50

Very difficult to find & expensive hologram foil parallel numbered to only 50.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

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2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Red Foil Signature #ed/25

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2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Blue Foil Signature #ed/1

No image available.

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2013 BBM 1st Version Green Wing #183 - Rookie Foil #ed/100

A few of these show up for auction on occasion.  Very expensive and numbered to 100.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

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2013 BBM 1st Version Green Wing #KP2

Handed out during a family event at Kamagaya Stadium (Photo courtesy of Ameba)

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2013 BBM 1st Version Pink Wing #SL07

Handed out at another stadium event (Photo courtesy of YJA)

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2013 BBM 1st Version Purple Wing #183 - Sports Card Magazine (SCM) Base

Issue #98 of Sports Card Magazine had 5 original promotional cards including this one of Ohtani.

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2013 BBM 1st Version Purple Wing #183 - Sports Card Magazine (SCM) Silver Foil

Randomly inserted in SCM #98 were silver facsimile signature parallels.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

Check out my YouTube Video!

H553: 1955 Ranga 9 Sumo Wrestling Brick/Slammer Set!

Many years ago I discovered this 1955 Renga 9 set...probably at least 10-12 years ago at this point...and they are so rare that I never knew there was an actual variation with this set.  The backs come in two different ink colors: brown and blue.  Finding any menko from this set is tough, now there are variations I'll have to chase.  Aside from the back variations, this specific H553 set is gorgeous on the front...gold ink makes the images pop off the cardboard and adds to their quality and rarity.  Featuring almost all the top-ranked wrestlers from 1955, it has and early card of Wakanohana who was extremely popular and ultimate taking sumo to new popularity heights before handing the reigns over to one of the greatest Yokozuna of all time, Taiho, in the early 1960s.  Not to mention he was the uncle of Hanada boys who took sumo to all-time record heights in the early 1990s as Yokozuna Wakanohana and Takanohana!

H-Series menko are thick menko that were used as slammers used in the game.  Much like their modern-day POG counterparts, this heavy slammer was used to flip over the game menko and these heavy menko were often cherished by children.  It can be hit or miss on the quality of these menko...some like the H553 are still in great condition.  Others, however, are often beat up as you would expect.  These H-Series menko didn't just feature sumo wrestlers, but there are many famous movie and screen stars on several other sets. 

I recently did a YouTube video on finding two additional menko from this set...Yokozuna Chiyonoyama and Yokozuna Tochinishiki.

Thanks for stopping by!

1983-1 Japanese Sumo Wrestling Playing Card Set

I just did a video of this 1981-3 Japanese Sumo Wrestling Playing Trump Card Set over on my YouTube channel, but wanted to highlight a few more details here.  The Japanese word for playing cards is Trump or トランプ.  I'm sure there is a background on why it is called "trump"...probably was borrowed from another language.

I really like these trump sets as they feature a lot of wrestlers that really only ever got cards in these sets.  A brief history...these continued to be printed today, but started in 1973.  They usually came out one set per year (except in 2012 when the big match-fixing scandal hit sumo and in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), but at the height of sumo's popularity in the early 1990s they were cranking out 3 sets per year.  These sets were only available at the kokugikan and souvenir shops.

This particular 1983-1 set was printed in March 1983 and has some notable rikishi in the set: the dai-yokozuna Chiyonofuji as the King Diamonds, the great Yokozuna Kitanoumi as the King of Hearts, Yokozuna Takanosato ranked as an Ozeki as Queen of Spades, the young Asashifuji ranked as a Maegashira before he became Yokozuna later on in the 1980s. and of course Takamiyama who seemed like would keep competing forever.  There was a 1983-2 set made in September of that year that included an extra Queen of Clubs that showed Takanosato as a recently promoted Yokozuna...this was done to hold people over until the following year when a whole new set could be printed.

I haven't been able to research much about who manufactured these sets, but the case does say "Alaska Playing Card Company"...not sure if they made just the plastic storage cases or the whole sets.  A brief search on Google doesn't yield anything.  

Thanks for tuning in and certainly appreciate all the support over the years!

Definitive Overview of Japanese Sumo Wrestling Cards & Menko

One of my 2022 goals is to do a better job of tying in my blogging content to my YouTube content.  I know YouTube might turn some of you off, but since about October 2021 I've been exploring the video medium for getting some of my Japanese sumo wrestling card and menko content out there.  However, I still do enjoy writing and so wanted to wrap together video and written content on occasion.  Recently I was able to publish my 5th Edition of the Sumo Menko & Card Checklist and it has been well-received.  After about 5 years, it was time to publish a new edition.

One thing I really wanted to tune up for this fifth edition was the 20 different types of sumo menko & cards there are out there.  I recently uploaded a video on YouTube to walk through each of the types, but I wanted to memorialize each of the 20 types here as well.  Each and every menko and card that was made from the 1800s to 2022 falls into one of these 20 categories:

A-Series Candy Cards - Issued with candy and gum from the early 1900s, these extremely-hard-to find cards were usually redeemed for prizes and thus seldom show up at auction.  This A591: 1959 Karuso Cookie Card is hard to identify, but I think it is Maegashira Wakamisugi.

B-Series Bookmark Cards - A small handful of cards in bookmark form were sporadically issued in the first part of the 1950s.  They don't appear to have been too popular and certainly not many were saved from the perils of history.  This is Yokozuna Tochinishiki from the B563: 1956 Shiori Round-Top Set.

BB-Series Black & White Bromide Menko and Cards - These menko were printed with the halftone printing process and are much harder to find than their color counterparts.  They became popular in the early 1940s.  Yokozuna Haguroyama below adorns this menko from the BB521: 1952 Small Shikona 3-4 B&W set.

BC-Series Color Bromide Menko and Cards - Probably the most common and easy-to-find type of menko out there.  They were produced in the millions and they frequently show up at auction today.  If you are looking at where to start, make sure you pick up some of these like this Maegashira Wakabayama menko from the BC561-1: 1956 Marusan Jyunishi Nagai 3-5-6 Type 1 Printed Back Set.

BP-Series Bromide Photograph Cards - These cards are really hard to catalog since the backs are usually blank and you have to rely on a sparse amount of detail on the front to try and find cards from the same set.  I have hundreds of these in a stack that still need sorted.  These BP cards were really popular in the 1940s and kids and adults would collect them and put them in albums and scrapbooks.  Most are really hard to find in great condition, but this Ozeki Akinoumi from the BP419: 1941 White Shikona Bromide set survived a war and the brutality of time.

C-Series Circle Menko - Precursors to POGs, these C-Series menko are extremely rare to find in the wild and most usually command a pretty high price.  The C011: 1901 Large Disk Set with Komusubi Genjiyama features wood-block printed images!

G-Series Game Cards - Who doesn't love games...I've categorized all game cards in this series and there are some fun ones like this G552: 1955 Marugo Trump card game set with Yokozuna Chiyonoyama at the top of the deck.

H-Series Brick Menko - Like the slammers in POGs, these heavy "brick" menko rarely survived menko battles in great shape.  Use for slamming other menko in hopes of flipping them over, you'll know almost instantly if you have a "brick" menko like this Sekiwake Matsunobori that has gold ink on the front!

K-Series Karuta Cards - If you have spent any amount of time in Japan you will undoubtedly play a game or two of karuta.  You need at least three people to play and the more the merrier!  It is super fun and there are all sorts of themed sets, but the sumo decks are my favorite.  This tattered K532: 1953 Sport and Celebrity Karuta Set with Maegashira Shimizugawa is one of my favorites!  

M-Series Square Menko - Possible one of the most popular types of menko are square menko.  Their durability, heavy cardboard stock, and great graphics made these popular from the 1940s to 1950s. Yokozuna Kagamisato was menko #8401 in the M522: 1952 Gunbai 4 set.  

P-Series Prize Sheet Cards - You get a prize and you get a prize...these cards were only issued on prize sheets and were given away to children if they were lucky enough to find a regular card or menko with a prize stamp on the back.  A lot of P-Series cards have glue stains on the back from being stuck to prize sheets and then "torn" off once a child picked one he/she liked.  This P561: 1956 Prize Sheet card of Maegashira Wakahaguro looks like it was also stuck in a photo album after being won.

PC-Series Postcards - Postcards were all the rage in the 1920s and 1930s.  They are still some of the most expensive cards out there usually going for over $10/card.  Ozeki Kunimiyama would have been a sought after addition from this PC121: 1912 Daikokuya Postcard Set.

R-Series Rikishi Menko - Arguably one of the most distinct and fun types of menko to collect.  These die-cut menko have distinct shapes, great artwork, and usually contain all the popular rikishi of the era.  A lot of people jump on these auctions, especially for the older menko and they rarely pop up anymore.  These type of menko were popular from the early 1900s all the way to the 1950s!  Komusubi Kasagiyama below was part of the 10-menko R378: 1937 Rikishi Gunbai 5 set.

S-Series Stadium Cards - Believe it or not there was a time when there were not TVs in homes and people would have to listen to sumo on the radio or buy a ticket and attend in person.  These souvenir cards were popular in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s as people would use them to visualize their favorite wrestler while sitting under the kotatsu listening to the bouts live.  Ozeki Shimizugawa from the S362: 1936 Kokugikan Back and White Set would have been one everyone was watching back in the day.

Z-Series Magazine Cards - If it was issued in a magazine, it is categorized here.  Yoshibayama was a popular subject in the 1950s and captured on this card from the Z561: 1956 Zashi Set.  

CT-Series Telephone Cards - Telephone Card collecting was all the rage in the 1980s and 1990s and card manufacturers were making money hand over fist.  Sumo popularity was almost at an all-time high at this time too so it is only natural that one of the princes of sumo, future Yokozuna Takanohana was included in this CT951: 1995 Wakanohana/Takanohana Kyushu Supporters Association Set. 

1970s & 1980s Cards - There were a handful of sumo cards produced in the 1970s and 1980s and lumped together here under this category.  Takamiyama was a favorite subject and his Debut Card is featured below in the 1971 Kabaya Leaf set.

Foreign Cards - It sounds weird to say foreign cards in relation to sumo, but there have been a handful of non-Japanese cards that depicted sumo wrestlers like this Yokozuna Taiho from the 2012 Canadian Sportskings Card Set.

Trump Cards - These annual releases starting in 1973 depict the top wrestlers of the time and capture many early cards of many wrestlers.  Kitanoumi below was a popular subject in this 1981 release.

BBM Cards - Most modern collectors start their collecting hobby with the BBM set releases.  Starting in 1997, BBM sets have released once, twice, or even three times a year and are popular to collect.  Ozeki Kaio was among the most famous Ozeki of all time and adorned this 2001 BBM set.

Thanks for tuning in and I am hoping to bring some more interesting sumo card and menko information in the future.