For the first five years of this blog there was nothing more stunning for me than communicating and acting with collectors from all over the world, especially abroad.
England, France, Australia, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, I could not believe the reach of the blog and how many different people collected baseball cards! I made contact with many of them and traded several times with some.
Then each of them slowly disappeared from the blog room, often without a track, until now it is only me and some of my Canadian friends.
A few weeks ago I received an envelope from Japan with a few cards, and then yesterday a large, fat package from Japan Post was deposited on a chair on my veranda. Well, well, that can be just one person – what’s in it?
Well, this.
It was a binder full of cards. A binder full of Sega Card Gen MLB cards, which I am only familiar with because Kenny has blogged over it and often sent me some Dodgers cards.
This time, however, he sent a whole set.
This binder contains all 408 cards in the Sega Card-gene 2012. ZZ said very nicely in a note that he sent it to me because I am a dedicated set of collectors and knew that I would appreciate it.
This is too cool. For those who are not aware of these cards, Sega produced map sets in combination with an MLB-Arcade game of 2010-13. They have a permit by MLB and TOPPS, I believe, but only published in Japan (I don’t know how they were published, nor how Kenny collected the set).
This is my first complete set produced abroad, as far as I know. (I have not yet fully completed the O-Pee-Chee-set of 1983). It contains many of the stars from that time-albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, David Ortiz, Prince Fielder, David Ortiz, Joe Mauer, Derek Jeter, etc., etc.
I admit that I am a bit in conflict because of this set because, as Kenny wrote in the memorandum, I am both a permanent collector and a Dodgers -collector.
Because of the Dodger maps on these pages I want to remove them and place them in the team binders. Fortunately Kenny previously sent me the most stars from that time – such as Kershaw, Kemp, Ethier and Billingsley. But guys like Tony Gwynn Jr. And Mark Ellis I have never seen before and … Oooh, that’s difficult.
The back of the binder contains some extras, I didn’t have time to fully find out what is there. I know that the foil cards that are there are a rarer subset.
This shiny foil Matt Kemp card appeared separately in the package.
ZZ acknowledged that I cannot decipher it – and I can’t, nor can I play the game. But all the Japanese who write on it simply underlines how cool it is to have a set in Japan!
A few other random cards showed up with the binder, such as the Kemp and the Cliff Lee Konami card at the top of the post.
In accordance with the spirit of the Send, this monster map of the magazine card magazine of Ichiro 2000 is what a little strange. It screams “Game used BAT”, but the “game-used” part is just a photo (or illustration) of a bat piece on this very thin card. (I couldn’t find this on TCDB, I had to find it on eBay).
And some prospect signatures from some Dodgers who didn’t get it from the time that ZZ did a lot of graphics.
All highly appreciated and also the words of Kenny about a normal reader. As I have often said, it is nice to know at a time when so many many have stopped, nice to know that others still continue to read.
This package was a great memory of the global nature of the blogs and how much the collectors brought together from distant countries. We have really lost that in our other more current forms of social media – at least the part of cherishing that collecting experiences and relationships.
Good luck with your collection trip, ZZ. And everyone else.
#completed #sets #international