April 2, 2015: Sports & Americana Auction
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/2/2015
Here are seven striking cards from the most important Japanese baseball card issue ever printed, the Kabaya-Leaf cards from 1967, the only year that the company produced cards and one of the rarest issues for advanced collectors. Included in the array is one of the four ultra-rare shortprints in the series, the No. 2 Taisuke Watanabe. The 2 3/8-by-3 3/8-inch cards represented a major change for Japanese cards, considerably larger than previous card productions in Japan and produced in two styles reminiscent of 1959 Topps and perhaps 1963 Topps as well, without the smaller inset photo; the set is complete at 105 cards and includes players from only half of the 12 teams in Japan’s major league in 1967. The set’s importance was further elevated by the fact that the cards represent the only major issue that featured players from the historic era with so many of the greatest names in the league’s history and roughly spanning the era of the record-setting nine consecutive pennants won by the Yomiuri Giants. The cards were reportedly imported to the United States and offered by mail for several years into the early 1970’s. The cards portray seven members of the of the Nankai Hawks: Kazuto Tsuruoka (BVG 8), PSA 7 specimens of Kersji Koke, Akitada Niiyama, Eizo Goda and Watanabe, and PSA 6 cards of Shozo Higuchi and Toshihiko Hayashi.
1967 Kabaya-Leaf Japanese Baseball Cards Third-Party Graded (7)
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