Thunderbirds' Post-Performance Pack Rip

For anyone that has seen the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, you know how awe inspiring they can be.  Big and little kids get goosebumps and it definitely is the highlight of any airshow.  The 2017 Maxwell Air Force Base Airshow this weekend was no different....a truly inspiring performance.

I have 8 packs of Japanese sports cards to rip in order to continue a fascinating day.  I picked up some of these in Japan a few weeks ago, but the B.League cards I picked up from YJ auctions over the past few months.  I have 8 packs in total, 3-BBM 1st Half Basketball , 2-BBM 2nd Half Basketball, 1-Epoch Horse Racing, 1- BBM Time Travel Baseball, and 1-Epoch Japan National Team Soccer.  I have not opened any of these packs, so am curious what is inside.  First up, B.League 1st Half.....

Would you believe that two of the packs were almost duplicates?!  Crazy and I randomly pulled these packs from the open box....oh well.  I was pumped about the On Fire card I got of Kimitake Sato.  These come one every four packs and is the first one I own.  They are much cooler in person with holographic stars in the background.  I really like the designs of these cards and I think BBM did an excellent job of limiting production and creating the right amount of hype with this set.  Let's hope the 2nd Half yields some goodness.

Bam, another On Fire card...this time of Seiya Ando of the Akita Northern Happinets....what a great name of a team!  The numbering of the 2nd Half continues from where the 1st Half left off (#073) and the design is identical.  All in all, not a bad rip for these 5 packs.  Let's see how the world of horse racing treats us....

Wow, I am on a roll...the one pack I picked up yielded an insert card that comes 1 in 6 packs.  I received a JRA Award Card for Major Emblem.  It has gold-foil printing on the front and a picture of the jockey and horse as well.  Out of this 62-card set, I got the following four cards (Golden Dream, Magic Time, Passion Dance, and Ojo Chosen.  If I knew more about horse racing, I could probably give you better details, but the front has a nice jockey/horse photo and the back highlights a race the horse won along with the odds and payouts for the win.  It also looks to have strengths and weaknesses as well along with some stats along the bottom.  I saw boxes of these while in Japan so I am not sure if they didn't sell well, or they were really popular.  Next is another Epoch product...soccer.

I'm on a roll with these insert cards.  This time I hit a 1:4 pack of Samurai Blue of the Keeper, Shusaku Nishikawa.  Pretty cool as it has a facsimile gold-foil signature on the front with a full-length pose of him.  This set is definitely eclectic.  It has a bit of everything....U-23, Men's National Team and Women's National Team.  I can't say I am a huge fan of the design as it seems too busy, but was a fun pack to break.  I like watching soccer and so am really looking forward to collecting German soccer cards when we move this summer.  Last up, a Time Travel 1975 set from BBM
 that promises to have a retro feel of the BBM 1975 design much like Topps Heritage...

I love this set as I've always liked the feel of the older cardboard stock.  This set did not disappoint, although I did not land any players that jumped out at me right away (Keishi Suzuki is a HOFer, but had to look him up).  It did land a card of 6 different teams and the look of the older uniforms is definitely worth noting.  Look at how Shozo Doi has adopted Sadaharu Oh's flamingo stance?  I could see myself collecting a set of these cards.

There you have it.  I hope you enjoyed the small variety of pack rips and have a great week!

Express Shopping at Mint Ikebukuro and Mint Shibuya

For those that haven't been to Japan, it is a wonderful place to live and visit!  I took another trip to Japan over Spring Break with my family and we spent the last day in Tokyo where I was able to hit up a few card shops, albeit rather quickly as I didn't want to bore the family with my browsing.  We had other fun family things to do so I wanted to limit the amount of time card shopping.  I was able to hit up three stores though: Mint Ikebukuro, Mint Shibuya, and Yellow Submarine in Akihabara.  Dave over at the Japanese Baseball Cards Blog did a great 4-part series on a bunch of card shops in Japan so I won't recapture what he has there, but his stuff in his blog is extremely useful when picking and choosing where you want to spend your card-shopping time.  One of these days, I would love to make a sports-only trip to Japan to watch baseball, basketball, sumo wrestling, and go card shopping.  I think the end of March I could probably hit all those up over a two-week period.

I spent about 20 minutes in Mint Ikebukuro (groan....right?  only 20 minutes...ha!)  I was able to browse their sumo and pack selection and walked away with another box of 2017 BBM B.League Basketball Fast Break 2nd Half as well as an assortment of random packs that I will open up on my next blog post.  The staff was really helpful and we chatted for a few minutes in my horrific Japanese about collecting Brandon Laird, Yuta Tabuse, and Sumo Wrestling.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any older menko cards, but it was a fun browse!

Mint Shibuya was a quick walk from the station and we were mainly here to do the Shibuya Crossing where everyone crosses the street at one time and in force.  It was definitely fun to people watch here and do the crossing.  My son got a kick out of it.  We headed over to Mint Shibuya and I was intrigued about the bar they had in the store to drink while breaking card boxes.  As tempting as it was, I had to resist bellying up the bar to throw one back as I am sure it would have turned into two and three and my son was with me.  The store was a little smaller than I was expecting, but I did walk away with a sweet deal on a 2015 Sumo Wrestling Box and some more packs.

The last store I headed into was Yellow Submarine over in Akihabara.  I actually didn't see a whole lot here and we were in the area for the arcades anyway, but it was pretty neat to check out all the floors.  A lot of gaming and idol cards here and I didn't end up walking away with anything.  Booo, but I did have fun browsing.  No pictures unfortunately.


Here is what I did end up getting in my bag to haul back home.

I was able to fill in most of my Members Card...hopefully I can spend a bit more at some point to get my ￥500 discount......stay tuned for some pack breaks!

Slowly, but surely....Yuta Tabuse Collection Update #1

I added two new Yuta Tabuse cards to my collection over the past few weeks....knocking out some of the small stuff first.  I was able to pick up an inexpensive 2004-05 Topps Chrome Rookie Card off of eBay as well as a 2004-05 SP Signature Retro Remnants with a piece of jersey he wore during a photo shoot.  This is the first memorabilia card I have ever picked up so was pretty excited.  Normally I would have passed it up, but the #427/499 was too tempting.  This brings my Tabuse collection up to 3.  Slowly, but surely as they say.