Sadaharu Oh

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by Frankish

Also, I'd been considering making a post to get some help identifying a few Sadaharu and other cards. Hope you don't mind if I just stick the pictures in here. Maybe some Sadaharu experts could steer me in the right direction?

The other card looks like Kaneda (actually, I can't imagine who else it would be), but I don't know the issue....

You've got a really good Sadaharu Oh card there. The round one on the right is from the 1965 Giants Furikake menko set. Its extremely rare, fewer than five copies are known to exist. I have one too, I wrote a bit about it here:

http://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspot...-oh-cards.html

The pitcher card you have is of Seiji Shibutani, who was a team mate of Kaneda's on the Kokutetsu Swallows. Not sure what set it is from without seeing the back.

The other circular Oh card you have on the left I think is uncatalogued. I remember bidding on one on Yahoo Japan Auctions a few months ago, I think it sold for about 7000 or 8000 Yen (like 75$ or so).

The rectangular Oh card I'm not sure what set its from, probably a 1970s issue (very cool artwork on it)!

[Frankish]

Originally Posted by seanofjapan

You've got a really good Sadaharu Oh card there. The round one on the right is from the 1965 Giants Furikake menko set. Its extremely rare, fewer than five copies are known to exist. I have one too, I wrote a bit about it here:

http://baseballcardsinjapan.blogspot...-oh-cards.html

Thanks, that was a cool read.

Since I have your attention and you are much more knowledgeable than me, I wanted to ask your thoughts on the total populations of these cards.

For instance this 1965 Furikake Oh card. I have a copy (and am not a serious collector) and you have one...I'd be inclined to think that here are hundreds out there. Maybe fewer than five have been reported at some central forum or registry, but could it just be that vintage card collecting never had the same devotion in Japan that it had in the US? If prices make it worthwhile, I'd expect some enterprising Japanese dealers to start unearthing pretty significant quantities.

Also in this thread, the OP has a copy of the '59 pitcher-back Oh rookie card. I also have that card and saw another one sell at auction last week. Could it really be as rare as reported?

I don't mean to be flippant, am just genuinely curious as I've only gotten into Japanese cards in the past couple of years. My general opinion on this evolved from the large number of Engel's rated R5 cards that I've picked up in that time. Admittedly, there might not be much of a market for some, especially the lesser known names, but I find it hard to believe I have one of only four or five known copies of so many cards. I've found half a dozen in the last two weeks.

Anyway, hope you don't mind the inquiry. I'm not sure where else to ask!

[nat]

Others may disagree, but I think Engel's rarity ratings are best thought of as falling along a spectrum from "these things are all over the place" to "these don't come up much", rather than as a strict numerical population report. There's just no way to tell how many of any given card are out there.

One other thing to remember is that there are a zillion different sets, many of which were produced in small quantities.

Consider this: imagine that there were ten million sets made, each of which is R5. In that case, finding some R5 card or other would be no big deal. (Although finding some particular one would.)

The real case isn't quite like that, but since there are a large number of sets (far more than American cards during the same years), getting some rare card or other isn't very surprising. (Although if you know of several copies of an R5 card, that is some indication that Engel's numbers for that card are off, which, as I said at the beginning, probably shouldn't be a surprise.)

[Frankish]

Originally Posted by nat

Others may disagree, but I think Engel's rarity ratings are best thought of as falling along a spectrum from "these things are all over the place" to "these don't come up much", rather than as a strict numerical population report. There's just no way to tell how many of any given card are out there.

Totally agree. In fact, I wrote this exact thing in an email earlier today. Barring a big tranche of a particular issue being unearthed, I think the Engel's rarity ratings are very useful as a -relative- metric. Was really just getting at the fact that the absolute numbers were probably not really representative of reality.

And your point about the number of sets is well taken, the math makes sense. That said, since I buy almost only HOF players (or those that I recognize, an even more limited subset) unless I'm building a set, I'm still pretty amazed at the number of R5 cards that come up regularly.

BTW, I've enjoyed your HOF collection thread as much as any I've read. That must have been fun. Cheers!

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by nat

Consider this: imagine that there were ten million sets made, each of which is R5. In that case, finding some R5 card or other would be no big deal. (Although finding some particular one would.)

The real case isn't quite like that, but since there are a large number of sets (far more than American cards during the same years), getting some rare card or other isn't very surprising. (Although if you know of several copies of an R5 card, that is some indication that Engel's numbers for that card are off, which, as I said at the beginning, probably shouldn't be a surprise.)

I think the comparison that best illustrates this point is Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh's rookie cards.

Aaron's 1954 Topps rookie card is available in much larger numbers than any Sadaharu Oh rookie card.

But there is just one of them.

Sadaharu Oh in contrast has several dozen rookie cards issued in 1959 (I'm not even sure what the exact number is, but easily more than 20). Individually all of them are much scarcer than a 1954 Topps Aaron, but collectively I wouldn't be surprised if there were the same, or maybe even more, Sadaharu Oh rookie cards in existence than there are Hank Aaaron rookie cards.

[Frankish]

That's very helpful. Thanks!

[prestigecollectibles]

Hi all, I just found this post by accident. I did some searching and found that according to the top three TPG pop reports there is a total of 7,857 Aaron rookies that have been graded.

PSA 5638
SGC 1360
BVG 859

I assume there are plenty of others that have not been graded yet.

Although there are probably 40-50 or so different Sadaharu Oh cards that were produced in 1959. I seriously doubt that the total of all Oh cards would be more than the 1954 Aaron card.

I've been dealing with Japanese cards since 1989 and I think it was actually easier to find cards years ago. I would go to antique shows, flea markets and and various shops where I would actually find some cool items. It sure seems like things have dried up out there.

Back in 1993 I was on a Japanese quiz show along with Dan Johnson called "Naruhodo! The World" You can see some of the things we had in our collections.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by prestigecollectibles

Hi all, I just found this post by accident. I did some searching and found that according to the top three TPG pop reports there is a total of 7,857 Aaron rookies that have been graded.

PSA 5638
SGC 1360
BVG 859

I assume there are plenty of others that have not been graded yet.

Although there are probably 40-50 or so different Sadaharu Oh cards that were produced in 1959. I seriously doubt that the total of all Oh cards would be more than the 1954 Aaron card.

I've been dealing with Japanese cards since 1989 and I think it was actually easier to find cards years ago. I would go to antique shows, flea markets and and various shops where I would actually find some cool items. It sure seems like things have dried up out there.

Back in 1993 I was on a Japanese quiz show along with Dan Johnson called "Naruhodo! The World" You can see some of the things we had in our collections.

Wow, your collection is amazing, you still have all that stuff?

That video (which is so cool BTW) does a good job of demonstrating how little card collecting had permeated public awareness here (at least in 1993) - its neat that it took them so long to guess that the baseball goods you collected were cards (and they didn't really hit on that until the host steered them to it from menko).

That is a fair point about the Oh/ Aaron rookie card numbers and I think you are probably right that there are more Aarons based on that, but still the number of Oh rookies collectively must be at least in the thousands so I don't think the population is too far off in comparison.

[seanofjapan]

Originally Posted by Frankish

Thanks, that was a cool read.

Since I have your attention and you are much more knowledgeable than me, I wanted to ask your thoughts on the total populations of these cards.

For instance this 1965 Furikake Oh card. I have a copy (and am not a serious collector) and you have one...I'd be inclined to think that here are hundreds out there. Maybe fewer than five have been reported at some central forum or registry, but could it just be that vintage card collecting never had the same devotion in Japan that it had in the US? If prices make it worthwhile, I'd expect some enterprising Japanese dealers to start unearthing pretty significant quantities.

Also in this thread, the OP has a copy of the '59 pitcher-back Oh rookie card. I also have that card and saw another one sell at auction last week. Could it really be as rare as reported?

I don't mean to be flippant, am just genuinely curious as I've only gotten into Japanese cards in the past couple of years. My general opinion on this evolved from the large number of Engel's rated R5 cards that I've picked up in that time. Admittedly, there might not be much of a market for some, especially the lesser known names, but I find it hard to believe I have one of only four or five known copies of so many cards. I've found half a dozen in the last two weeks.

Anyway, hope you don't mind the inquiry. I'm not sure where else to ask!

This is a good point and why I'm always careful to say "known to exist" rather than "exist" when mentioning Engel's rarity ratings.

I basically agree with what Nat says - its probably better to view those ratings as a spectrum rather than a statement of how many of a card actually exist. I don't doubt that Engel has an extensive knowledge and has done way more research into this than anyone else, and is doing his best to provide this information honestly and accurately, but giving such precise numbers for the rarest cards, particularly the top two ratings (R5 = 5 or fewer known, R4 = 10 or fewer) seems problematic given the limited knowledge we have of how many actually exist as opposed to just how many are known to exist.

Like with the Sadaharu Oh menko we both have a copy of. The guide says there are 5 or fewer known copies out there. But I have no idea if my copy is one of the 5 (or fewer) Engel knew about when he wrote that, or if it is a new discovery and I guess you are the same in that regard. So between us we might have just added 2 copies to the known ones out there, which could be enough to drop it from an R5 to an R4 but we have no way of knowing if that is the case. So its quite unreliable in that regard, given the developing nature of finds like that. But at the same time, if you interpret it simply as a measure of relative scarcity I think it is quite accurate - these cards are genuinely scarce.

Another issue which you mention is that we don't know exactly how many more of these are out there in Japan waiting to be unearthed. I think Engel's rarity guide is fairly accurate in terms of how many have made their way to the US market (where it is possible to keep pretty accurate tabs on the cards entering the market since there are pretty limited avenues). But one problem is that in Japan the market for vintage cards is still not mature like it is in the US. I'd say it probably resembles the situation in the US in the 70s when people were first becoming aware that old cards were worth something and stashes were still being dug up.

Evidence of this comes from my own collection. The vast majority of my vintage Japanese menko did not come from card dealers. I got almost all of them from general antique dealers who had no idea what they were selling. They just gather up old junk from estates or whatever people bring them, then break them up into lots and sell them. So most of the cards I get are being sold to me by guys who are also selling old kimonos, books or woodblock prints. The cards are therefore pretty much all new to the baseball card collecting market, which is not something you ever see in the US since everybody knows old cards are worth a lot. So finds of cards are still happenning right now. Its not by any means a daily event, these lots are hard to come by, but they do still exist and its definitely possible that within the next month I might find a lot with an R5 card in it or something, which will raise these questions.