New Discoveries! Adding some info to the catalogue...

 One of the things I love about collecting Japanese cards is that its still possible to discover stuff that the hobby as a whole doesn't know about.  You can't really do that with American cards anymore, everything has been catalogued and discovered decades ago.

In Japan though there are a lot of cards out there that nobody knows exists, or at least aren't catalogued yet.  Its sort of like the US hobby is represented by the contemporary world, where every square inch has been mapped by satellites and we know everything about it.  The Japanese hobby on the other hand is the 15th century world where European explorers know so little about it they don't even know that the Pacific Ocean exists.

The above picture is one of my newest pick ups and it contains some discoveries in it!

It is an unopened box of round menko issued by Mitsuya in 1976.  I bought a different unopened box of 1976 Mitsuya round menko a couple of weeks ago and it looks nothing like this one. Which is neat.

There are actually cards from two different sets in this one, the set that Engel catalogues as JRM 10 (which was also contained in the other box I bought) and JRM 16 (which wasn't).  These are radically different sets in terms of size and rarity.  JRM 10 is a small menko 2 1/4 inches in diameter.  JRM 16 on the other hand are huge, as this picture of one with a 1979 Topps Dave Cash card I had lying around illustrates:

 So anyway, there is a reason there are two sets in the box.  It contains 60 packs of cards, all of which contain three JRM 10 cards.  52 of those are "normal" JRM 10 cards, and 8 are "Atari" cards (winner cards) which entitle whoever finds one to a prize.  That prize is one of the 8 big JRM 16 cards which also came with the box, hence the two sets in one box.

When you open the box, the JRM 16 cards are on top as in the above photo.  Take them out and underneath are the JRM 10 packs, with 8 of them set aside in a plastic baggy so the store owner would know which ones were the Atari cards before putting them out for sale (presumably they would have taken them out and mixed them up with the non-winner packs)

The packs themselves are actually pretty ugly, they look like little garbage bags, (or condom packages due to the unfortunate fact that JRM 10 cards are round and about the same size....oh dear):

I mentioned that cards from the JRM 10 set were also in the other box I got, but these cards are actually from a different series of that set, so the cards are all different.  But like that stupid other box, all 3 cards in all of these packs feature the same 3 cards of the same 3 players.  So Mitsuya was consistent in the application of that "all doubles" pack concept.

The real treasure in this box though weren't the JRM 10 cards, but the 8 big JRM 16 cards that came with it.  They are things of true beauty:

 The backs all have facsimile signatures of the players.

 The really interesting thing to me though was the "discovery" in the box.  The Engel guide lists 13 different cards in this set (with a little + to denote that there may be more).  6 of the cards I got were in the catalogue but 2 were not!

 I found two new cards that the hobby was unaware of!!!!

The first featured Yakult Swallows pitcher Hiromu Matsuoka.  He is kind of a Hall of Very Gooder, having compiled an almost even 191-190 win loss record, falling just 9 wins short of admission to the Meikyukai.

 The other features Hiroshima Carp second basemen Tsuyoshi Oshita, who had led the league in stolen bases the previous season.

So there you go, we can now say that the JRM 16 set has at least 15 cards in it now!

Also, I'm not sure if this is a discovery or not, but the Engel guide makes no mention of the fact that the JRM 16 set was a prize item for people who pulled atari cards in packs of JRM 10 (specifically the packs that came in this box, the ones in the other box I got didn't have any prize cards).  At any rate, I'm putting that info out there now!

Weird and Disappointing Packs: 1976 Mitsuya

I made another impulse purchase on Yahoo Auctions.  I'm way over budget and need to stop.  But these things keep popping up and I can't.

There was a whole unopened box of 1976 Mitsuya Cider baseball menko (JRM 10) up for sale, how could I not put a bid on it?  Look how pretty they are, wouldn't you bid too? Even if, like me, you didn't really know what they are until you saw them for sale?

Anyway, now they are in my house.  

This is actually the weirdest, and most disappointing, unopened box I've ever gotten.  As the box top (which is pretty cool) says, it has 60 packs which were sold for 10 Yen each back in the day:

So far so good.  And take the lid off and you see a bunch of packs of menko wrapped in clear cellophane, each holding 8 cards.  

Wow, look at how exciting those look!  So colorful and what a variety of players!  No problems at all, I am totally satisfied with this purchase!!

But wait.  Lets pick up one of the packs and then.....things get real weird real fast.  Let me demonstrate by picking up this pack with Masaji Hiramatsu visible on the front.

Notice anything odd?  Like how every single one of the menko in that pack is the same color?  That is because they are all the same: 1 pack with 8 Masaji Hiramatsu cards in it!

I looked through every one and they are all the same: each pack contains 8 of the same card!  And I have many packs with the same player (5 Senichi Hoshino packs for example means I now own 40 1976 Mitsuya Cider Senichi Hoshino cards).

These are all the packs:

I note that this is a really small set: there are only 22 cards in it.  This box has 464 cards from that set in it.  But I can't make a single set!  The 22 cards seem to have been issued in two series, and this one only has one of those in it.  So I have 464 copies of 11 different cards!

This turned out to be way less fun than I thought it would be when I opened the box.

Also, one of the packs isn't even a baseball card its.....whoever this is:

Hope he is good, because I now have 24 of him.

This whole thing is just bizarre on so many levels (welcome to Japan....)  I mean, what kid in their right mind would have bought these back in the day?  Its not even hidden that each pack has 8 of the same card, you can plainly see it when you hold one up.

Mitsuya issued a few baseball menko sets like this in 1976 and, being new to the biz, I guess they just weren't very good at it (hence them only lasting the one year).  I mean, how hard would it have been to put 8 different cards in one pack???

So yeah.  This is now mine.  And I'm having some buyer's remorse, though fortunately it didn't cost me too much.