I could be wrong but I believe this is my first international trade this year with a collector in Japan (at least in terms of trades where I was sent stuff from Japan and I sent stuff to Japan, without physically being in Japan).
This time it was a person who calls themselves RA12. They're a Roberto Alomar supercollector and I hooked them up with what I hope is the centerpiece of their collection. In turn I asked them for a big fish. An autograph that's eluded me for years. He came through. Conveniently enough he also sent me two bonus cards.
Card #1
BEHOLD! A Shinnosuke Ogasawara autograph!
I've talked about Ogasawara on this blog before. He was the Dragons' first round draft pick in 2015 and he's still the pitcher with the best/highest ceiling in the organization here in 2019. This is in spite of him having down 2017-18 seasons due to various injuries and general ineffectiveness. The Dragons sucking at development is nothing new. BUT Ogasawara is still young enough to turn it around. It's because of that hope that his autographs are still expensive to boot.
Even though he's been a pro for three years now his autographs still hover around 10,000 yen (aprox $100 USD). More than twice of what he'd actually be worth if prices were based on production. But RA12 finally found an autograph from 2019 EPOCH Chunichi Dragons Rookies & Stars.
The only problem with this card is that the photo choice for Ogasawara is piss poor. This is Bob Hamelin Pinnacle levels of awful. For one thing it's basically a portrait shot/headshot and if that wasn't bad enough, Ogasawara looks like he's disinterested with everything going on. I admire this terrible photo choice in a so-bad-it's-good way. The best part is that this is limited to 25 copies lmao. Part of me wants to keep this by virtue of it being my first Ogasawara auto, and because I morbidly love these kinds of stupid things. Another part of me ponders whether or not to trade this for an Ogasawara auto with a better picture.
And no, the back is not much better. The Americanization of Japanese baseball card backs is complete.
Card #2
Oh now here we go. A rookie card of Dragons' phenom/top prospect, Akira Neo.
As the back shows, Neo's blood type is O-Type. Also this is a "bBeginning" insert limited to 100 copies. Woof! Even though that's a three digit serial number, this should fetch some serious coin here in the height of Neo-mania.
Card #3
We end today's edition of three cards on yet another first round pick by the Dragons, Hiroshi Suzuki.
Update: I was mistaken and got schooled. NPB Card Guy states that this Suzuki card came from EPOCH's flagship NPB set.
I talked about Suzuki a while back in another edition of 3 Cards and not much has changed. He's a power reliever with the potential to be a high-leverage arm/closer. Fingers crossed.
I will say this, I love that this is a card that has the NPB logo SOMEWHERE on the card.
And that was another edition of three cards. Big thanks to RA12 for the awesome Shinnosuke auto. And as always thanks to you (the readers) for stopping by :).
Take care.
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