2020 Collecting Goals

A lot of bloggers out there seem to hate writing their New Year Collecting Goals.  It is sometimes viewed as an obligation or mandatory....something they have to do.  Not me. I love setting hobby goals and this post isn't as much for my readers as it is for me...although I definitely enjoy the loyal readers who are sharing in this adventure with me.  Let's hope 2020 was as fruitful and enjoyable collecting sumo wrestling menko and cards as was last year.  Here are my 10 collecting goals this year:

Goal #1: Blog at least once a week - 52 posts this year!
I had a lot of stuff to blog about last year, but not enough time and bandwidth to do it all.  This year, I am going to set a goal of publishing a blog post at least once a week which should be easy to achieve.  Hopefully I'll be able to add a few extra blogs in the middle of the week here and there to knock this one out of the park.  Thanks to my loyal readers for making this blog fun!

 

 

 

Goal #2: Publish the 5th Edition of the Sumo Menko and Card Checklist.

Gah, I really need to get this book out the door.  There are a ton of new checklists that I have catalogued or that are in the queue.  Lots of new information and several corrections.  Not to mention that this I have revamped some of the sections to make it even more comprehensive and historically accurate.  This is the year to do this!

 

 

 

Goal #3: Add 5 more Sumo World magazines from 1973-1999 to my collection.

This will be a tough one for sure as these Sumo World magazines are harder and harder to find on the secondary market.  Now that I am down to basically filling in holes with my collection, finding affordable copies will be hard.  Luck will have to be a factor here.  For those that haven't read any Sumo World magazines, they were once the only English-language source of sumo wrestling information.  People from all over the English-speaking world had subscriptions and it was the go-to guide for sumo enthusiasts.  With the advent of the internet, the publication quickly became outdated, but the historical value captured inside these is second to none.  A true treasure trove of information that is contained nowhere else.

 

 

 

Goal #4: Attend three card shows this year.

It is no secret that card shows are a dying event across the U.S.  Even with a rich sports market out here in California, we can't muster up much in the way of some local shows.  But I still love going and even more excited for the nostalgic euphoria that I get from the thrill of the hunt and the browsing.  My goal is to make three shows this year...and hopefully one or two with Fuji with a celebratory Del Taco feast afterwards.

 

Goal #5: Add three more 1973 Calbee cards to my set.
If I can snag three reasonably priced cards for this set this year, it will definitely be a miracle.  Acheivable, but still difficult.  I need to save my dollars and yen for the really expensive cards later on....if they are around.  If I can knock out 10% of the set every year, I should be done by the time 2026 rolls around.  Here, just take my money now, it is not going to be cheap!

Goal #6: Keep rounding out my Japanese yukata fabric bolt & card collection.
Most of you are like, WTH?  Yeah, this is one of the quirks in my collection.  In the 1960s and early 1970s, Japanese cloth makers would add photo cards to bolts of indigo yukata material to help entice the buyer into buying the material to take home to make their own yukata.  Say what?  Yeah, hard to explain, but here are a few pictures to help give you a visual.  The problem with these is not so much the price, but they are heavy and expensive to import to the U.S.  Not sure what I am going to do with them all, but I'll figure it out at some point.  I am assuming it will just come to me on why I have them at some point.  Weird, huh?

 

 

 

Goal #7: Publish at least 6 BBM Card Set reviews.
I used to do a better job at this, but with limited time this one has fallen to the wayside.  However, I'd like to continue with blog reviews (ideally YouTube box break reviews).  I should be able to cover all the sumo wrestling releases as well as the B.League basketball sets leaving me with doing a few of the non-sport and other "fun" releases that BBM does every year.  Wish me luck!

Goal #8: Add 20 more cards to my Non-Sport Collection
I am very particular with my non-sumo wrestling sets and only have a few sets that I am actively collecting: 1980s Japanese Myojo Noodle Cards, 2002-2005 Radio Shack Zip Zap Cards, 1980s Famikon (NES) Amada Cards, Airport Trading Cards, & 1970s Yamakatsu Bruce Lee Cards. Since I am whittling my sets down to singles now, large lots are hard to come by so achieving 20 cards in this category will be quite challenging.

 

 

 

 

Goal #9: Send out 10 care packages.

For those that know me, I love to give random stuff.  Much like Kenny's Zaps, it feels good to give.  Enough said....

 

 

 

Goal #10: Maintain/Improve Google/Yahoo/Bing Search Engine results for Sumo Card(s) & Menko

For a third year in a row, I want to be the #1-at-the-very-top-of-your-browser result when you go search up Sumo Card(s) and Menko.  Last year I was the #1 on Yahoo, almost the #1 on Bing, and the #1-#6 on Google.  This is a fun one to chase and trying to beat the search engines algorithms is always a challenge.  Plus, I want to be at the top of the list so I am easy to find for all you future readers out there.

 

 

Well, there you have it again.  Thanks for stopping by and sticking with this post to the end and thanks for sticking with this blog all these years.  Happy New Year and best of luck collecting!

2019 Collecting Goals

2018 was a great year for my collection and meeting my collecting goals.  In 2017, I "scored" a B and in 2018, I "scored" an A-.  2019 will be an ambitious year as we have an impending move from Germany to California which will put a pause on my hobby for a good month or two.  Hopefully, I can be proactive and get some posts created beforehand to have ready to go during the move.  This year will also be one of my most ambitious in the hobby as I set out to complete two more goals than last year for a total of 12 goals this year.  I did "complete" all 10 of my goals last year, although some a little better than others.

 

Here are the 12 goals I am setting for myself this year in priority order:

1. Finish Editing and Print the 5th Edition of my Sumo Menko & Card Checklist Book
- The pride and joy to my sumo menko and sumo card hobby has been publishing new editions to the Sumo Menko & Card Checklist Book.  I have enough new content to drastically expand my book (it's currently at 349 pages) and I should be ready to publish the 5th Edition next fall.  The black and white bromide section as well as the playing card section are getting huge makeovers and there are tons of new sets and expansions to current sets that are waiting to get published.  My time on Earth is finite so I want to leave my mark with this book.

2. Update this Blog's Content and Publish 75 posts
- This blog has always been an outlet to organize my thoughts, organize my collection, and to meet fellow collectors.  Regular readers know my content can vary from week to week, but it always centers around my passion for sumo menko and cards.  When I first built this blog, I threw in a bunch of content and frankly haven't touched it since.  That will change this year as I will freshen up links and content to make it a little more useful with a little extra eye appeal.  I am also going to have consistent posting times with the two-week rotation of Week 1: Mon & Thu, Week 2: Wed, Week 3: Mon & Thu, Week 4: Wed. etc....  This should allow me to develop stronger posts and put me at around 75-80 posts for the year.




3. Add 5 New Cards to my 1973 Calbee Set
- Here we go!  I need to get a move on with this 1973 Calbee set and it is time to actively seek out the cards.  Getting 5 cards is not the problem....getting 5 cards that fit within my hobby budget is.  With some effort, though, I should be able to make a decent dent in this set.

4. Expand the Checklists for Sumo Wrestling Telephone Cards
- If you lived in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s, you know how huge the telephone card craze was.  It was on par with POGs across the United States, but lasted a lot longer and these cards inherently had value (most of them still do) as they could be used to make phone calls on Japanese pay phones.  But, aghast, the pay phone would punch a small hole in your card at the end of your call indicating how many credits you had left which also drastically killed the collecting value of your card.  Consequently, printing these cards was like printing free money for the telephone company since a lot of them went unused.  By sheer coincidence, sumo wrestling was going through a huge boom at this time and so there are hundreds of these sumo wrestling telephone cards that have yet to be fully appreciated or catalogued.  I'm ready to dive into this genre of sumo cards and get it published in my book.

5. Expand the Event-Signed BBM Sumo Card Checklist
- BBM as a sports-card company is full of mystery and I still don't know why they choose to use sticker autographs for their main sumo wrestling sets.  Yet when they host special events around Japan to promote new card products, they give away prizes which consists of on-card autograph cards.  They have wrestlers sign a few of them with gold ink and then they emboss the card with the BBM Authentic Seal.  These on-card autos are so much nicer than their ugly cousins and it can't be that much harder to use these in the main sets.  Anyway, there exists no known checklist for these event cards so my goal is to expand this checklist and get it published in my book.

6. Earn 1000 points on the Trading Card Database - Add BBM Sumo Wrestling Checklists
- The Trading Card Database is a refreshing enigma in the card collecting hobby.  It's self-policing and crowd-sourced data entry is so organized.  As a collector who likes to organize things, it is pure joy to navigate the site.  It also rewards you for your work by issuing points which allows you to do more things freely on the site and unlocks permission levels.  My goal is to get to a 1000 points this year, unlock Level 7, and add the BBM Sumo Wrestling Checklists to the database.  I first need a better scanner....any recommendations?

7. Start a YouTube Channel with BBM Card Box Breaks (or a variation on this theme)
- There are several YouTube channels that already do this, but I'm hoping to fill a void with the English-language piece.  I expect to make $0.00 doing this, but it will be a fun and interesting way for my son and I to breech the world of YouTube together.  Money talks and he has agreed to take on the job of being my editor and post-production guy.  Nothing fancy...just a good microphone, decent camera, and fun editing.  More to follow as we work out the details.

8. Add 5 New Sumo World Magazines to my Collection
- I'm in too deep on this one and have no other choice but to keep on trudging to the end.  The problem is that I really enjoy reading these old Sumo World magazines, but older ones to add to my collection are so hard to find these days.  They were first published in 1973 and are still being published today.  Around the year 2000 is when the internet killed this magazine, but between 1973 and 2000 the content flourished.  Because it is written in English, it was sent around the world and so there are very few on the secondary market within Japan.  It has thus limited me to eBay.  Right now I am 34 magazines short from completing the entire run from 1973 through the end of 1999.  My goal this year is to add at least 5 more to my collection to keep the momentum moving forward toward completion.

9. Finish my Yamakatsu Bruce Lee Series 1 Set, Add 5 More Cards to Series 2 & 3
- What is better than having Bruce Lee on a trading card?  It is having Bruce Lee AND Chuck Norris on a trading card together.  Series 2 (from the movie The Way of the Dragon) of these Yamakatsu cards are Chuck Norris' rookie cards and are iconic.  Although not extremely difficult to find, they do command a premium and I have been so close to finishing Series 1 of this set for a while now.  I need just two more cards.  I hope this is the year I finish it.  As for Series 2 and Series 3, I am just hoping to add at least 5 more to these sets.  If Chuck Norris can count to infinity twice, I can muster up the patience.  Although, I don't finish Chuck Norris card sets, he just tells me when I am done.




10. Maintain Google/Yahoo/Bing Search Engine Ranking for Sumo Card(s)/Menko
- This is kind of a quirky goal, but the readers of this blog definitely deserve the recognition here.  A few weeks ago, Sean from the Baseball Cards in Japan blog, posted an entry over on his Famiconblog about how his website was Google's #1 hit for the image search of the word "idiot"....this was about 7 years ago.  It got me thinking about what rank this blog is when I Google "Sumo Card".  #9 it turns out.  Then I did what every engineer would do, I conducted a quick test with Yahoo, Bing, and Google on various search terms.  Here is what I came up with:

Sumo Card: Bing #7, Google #9, Yahoo #1
Sumo Cards: Bing #2, Google #2, Yahoo #1
Sumo Menko: Bing #2, Google #1, Yahoo #1
Sumo Wrestling Card: Bing #2, Google #1, Yahoo #1
Sumo Wrestling Cards: Bing #1, Google #1, Yahoo #1

Thanks for making this blog the #1, #2, #7, & #9 website out there for sumo card and sumo menko content.

 

 

 

 

11. Add Additional Cards to my Brandon Laird & Yuta Tabuse Player Collections
- I have exactly two player collections that are non-sumo related: Brandon Laird of the Nippon Ham Fighters baseball team and Yuta Tabuse of the Tochigi Brex basketball team.  Both collections have come along nicely this year and I want to keep whittling down the number of holes in those two collections.  Laird cards that I need from his Yankees days are drying up, but there is an untapped supply of his Japanese cards on Japanese auction sites.  I've got a decent ways to go on Tabuse cards, but figure I'll pick up a few here and there over the course of this year.

12. Add 10 Additional Cards to my Airport Trading Card Collection
- Last up on the list is my Airport Trading Card set.  First issued in 2014, there are about 125 cards in the set issued from various airports around North America; although the exact total number is hard to determine since no checklist was ever made available.  I'm closing in on over 100 of these cards and still have a ways to go since the 2018 series was just released setting me back a little ways.  I'm looking to add at least 10 more this year.  We'll see where my budget leaves me with this #12 priority goal.

There you have it.  Thanks for sticking with this post to the end and thanks for reading.  I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and best of luck collecting!

Sumo World Magazine Archive Updated

I'm finally able to clear out some of my to-do-list with an update to the Sumo World Magazine Archive you see on the left side of this screen.  I added a bunch more magazines back in the summer and I was able to scan and upload the tables of content to the archive. Good stuff for sure and I am getting that much closer to completing the series of magazines from 1973-2000.  If anyone has any that are still on my wantlist below, give me a holler as I will gladly pay for them.  I've added the new scans of the covers as well as back in my May post, I only took a photo of them.

Wantlist:
1973 - March, May, November
1974 - January, March, July
1975 - May
1976 - September, November
1977 - July
1978 - September
1979 - May
1981 - January
1983 - March, July
1985 - January, November
1987 - September, November
1989 - January, March, July
1992 - May
1997 - September, November
1998 - January, March, May, November
1999 - January, May, July, September, November


New Adds:

RIP Doreen Simmons - A Great Sumo Wrestling Advocate!

Once upon a time, before the internet, English-speaking folks living outside of Japan had to rely on other English-speaking folks living in Japan for updates on sumo.  The most popular medium for their writing was Sumo World magazine that came out ever other month in time for the six main tournaments.  One of the first English-speaking trailblazers was Doreen Simmons.  I have never met Doreen, but I am familiar with her work in Sumo World magazine from the 1980s and 1990s.  She was well respected for her dedication to the sport.  Unfortunately, we lost Doreen last month and with her goes decades of sumo knowledge.  She was a true pioneer.  There will be others after her, but none like her.  RIP.

Here is her New York Times obituary.

Sumo World Magazine - 10 new additions

The past few months have been very productive with additions to my collection of vintage Sumo World magazines.  This round has landed me 10 new issues (1983-2003) with some great articles from years past and puts me at having 128 out of the 162 issues issued through the end of 1999.  Once I get access to my scanner again, I'll get the covers and tables of content uploaded and in my archive list located just to the right of this article along the top of the blog.

Some highlights from the additions:

1983: Konishiki makes Juryo.  This is the same Konishiki that is in the Fast and Furious 3 movie.


1984: Takanosato weds a Japan Airlines stewardess.

1984: Preparations are underway for an overseas trip to Washington DC to see President Reagan, only to be snubbed by the former First Lady, Nancy Reagan, because the sumo wrestlers disgusted her.  I'll have to see if I can dig up that full story.

1986: The Paris basho was a smashing success and 5 wrestlers are accused of smoking marijuana

1989: Akebono is an up and coming star.



1992: Konishiki marries a super model.


For those that don't know, the internet basically killed the magazine off.  Americans living overseas could now get their sumo news near real time and didn't have to wait for the staff of Sumo World to write up the articles, print them, and then mail them out.

Sumo World Magazine Archive Now Populated!

After several weeks, I was finally able to get all of my Sumo World Magazine covers scanned and uploaded along with the table of contents.  Check out the archives in the upper, right of the web version....or at the top scroll down menus of the mobile version.  It was definitely a walk down the path of history as I was scanning through each of the magazines during the scanning and upload process.  I am hoping people will enjoy the cover art and if there are any articles you'd like to read, let me know.  I'll continually add to this archive as I get more and more, but here are some of my favorite covers:

One of the greatest Yokozuna of all time and an incredible physique!

Takamiyama was arguably the reason sumo became popular outside of Japan!

Akebono...the first foreign Yokozuna and a Hawaiian hero!

I love picture banzuke and this cover showcases these unique pieces of art.

It is not everyday you have 4 active Yokozuna...let alone all of them posing for photos.

This image captures all that is sumo.....plus the scandals that go with sumo.