Collecting and Translating the 1973 Calbee Flag-Backs (131, 163, 166, 169, 170)
First, another 1980 update: I managed to get two more cards for my 1980 Calbee Large run, these from the incredibly tough second series. 1980 is a scarce year to begin with, and these cards are the rarest of the rare given that Calbee changed the size midway through production, so not even the whole run was in the large size. Cards #66 and #67 feature Mitsuru Fujiwara of the Hawks and Yoshikazu Takagi of the Whales respectively. As one of the murky, cruddy low-exposure night game shots that plague vintage Calbee sets, #66 was a bit of a painful purchase for me at 3,000 yen (basically $30 in Japan), but it can ’ t be helped. Just happy to come across some of these. I ’ ve included both cards in the 1980 archive here . Now, on to the '73s. #131 Aniya - Pitcher (Hiroshima) Relive the Dream of Striking Out ON in Order After playing for non-pro Ryukyu Tobacco out of Okinawa High, Aniya then joined the Carp in 1963. The following year he made the first team and has be...