Sadaharu Oh

[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.

[prestigecollectibles]

Thanks, I still have some of those items, but most of them were sold off especially to help pay for my move to Japan in 1996. There always seems to be many more Nagashima rookie cards floating around than Oh cards. Back in the early 1990s I found some nice stuff in Nagoya as well as Shimokitazawa in Tokyo. I miss those days.

Originally Posted by seanofjapan

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.