I live in Japan and collect (mainly) Japanese cards. The development of the card market here provides an interesting comparison with that in the US. Some of the comments in this thread got me thinking of these so I thought I would put them out there just for thoughts.
There have been a lot of companies over the decades that have produced cards in Japan but only two of them have done so for an extended period of time: BBM and Calbee. BBM started making cards in 1991 and modeled its cards and business on what American producers were making at the time, which was the high water mark of the junk wax overproduction era. They made a big set and sold it in foil packs like American sets were. Over the years it has basically followed American trends by introducing insert cards, autograph cards and other things for people to chase. It is basically a Japanese clone of an American card company.
Calbee is a bit more interesting though since it has no parallel in the US market. It started issuing cards in 1973, selling them as a promotional item aimed at children that came attached to its bags of potato chips (which is Calbee`s main business).
The interesting thing is that, from that humble beginning in 1973 to becoming probably the most well-known maker of Japanese baseball cards in Japan, do you know how Calbee distributes its baseball cards in 2016?
As a promotional item aimed at children that comes attached to its bags of potato chips.
Calbee has been remarkably consistent throughout the years in keeping its cards and overall business model simple. You buy a bag of chips (which even today cost less than $1) and you get two baseball cards with it (previous years they only included one card, but since 2009 its been 2). There are usually a couple insert sets that might be considered "chase" cards, but they don`t do the expensive memorobelia or other US style rare premium ones. Its a set meant for set-builders rather than for chasing some stuff and throwing the rest out. Set sizes have varied drastically over the years - the 75-76 set boasting almost 1500 cards, while most others generally fall in the 300-400 range.
The designs of the cards are extremely simple (and beautiful): a full bleed photo of the player on the front with almost no other design elements other than the player`s name and team. Calbee sets, particularly from the 1970s which had amazing photography, are among the most attractive ever produced. While they have made adjustments to the design throughout the years, with today`s sets a bit more glossy and printed on a different type of cardboard and in cards of slightly different dimensions, this year`s Calbee set is actually extremely similar to the original 1973 set in its basic design.
One of the things that (to me at least) really defines the junk wax era is that it marked the transition of the US card market from one in which cards were mainly targeted at children in the 1970s (with of course adults also collecting, but not dominating the market for new cards) to one in which adults became the main market that producers targeted. All the producers who entered the market in the 1980s and 1990s were basically aiming their products at a collector`s market whose logic was largely defined by adult collectors, rather than viewing cards as more or less a toy for kids to collect.
So Calbee is kind of the last survivor in the world of a baseball card maker which has kept its core business model - selling cards to kids as a promotional item - the same as it was in the pre-junk wax era. Its almost like an archeological relic from a time long past.
For that reason, as a set collector with fond memories of putting sets together as a kid, I love collecting cards over here because it offers an experience that is more or less extinct in North America now (at least in terms of new sets). The junk wax era never fully wiped out the old way of collecting in Japan like it did in the US.
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