Cleaning, Organizing, and Sorting

On a recent trip to Costco, I purchased some heavy duty Bankers Boxes which led to some early spring cleaning in my office.  When I was finished, I had cataloged most of my larger card sets which is something I've been meaning to do for years.  Most of the large boxes have been sorted and put away, but this major cleaning/organization project will probably continue until mid-March when spring actually arrives.

In the meantime... I'm also organizing parts of my card collection as well.  Back in December, I received a large flat rate box from Woody over on Sports Card Forum and inside were hundreds of Japanese MLB cards.  It took an entire afternoon to sort through his stuff and integrate it into my binders.

Here are the highlights from his care package.  Let's start with the Ohtani's since he's arguably the hottest player in the hobby:

2018 Topps Opening Day #200

2018 Topps Archives #50

2018 Topps Update #US285

It's not often anyone sends me an Ohtani rookie card... let alone three.  Once upon a time I owned a PSA graded copy of that Opening Day card, but I sold it during the pandemic.  The other were completely brand new to me.

In fact out of the thirteen Ohtani cards he sent my way, I needed twelve of them.  Here's a look at the other nine:

This influx of Shohei cards motivated me to give him his very own binder.  Up until now, his 9-pocket pages were crammed between Tomokazu Ohka and Hideki Okajima pages.   He joins Kurt Suzuki, Ichiro Suzuki, and Hideo Nomo as the only Japanese baseball players with their very own binders.

Speaking of Ichiro and Nomo, here are their new additions from Woody.  Let's start with Ichiro:

2021 Topps Platinum Players Die-Cuts #PDC-15

2022 Topps Archives #185

2021 is the least represented year in my Ichiro PC.  That die-cut insert is only the second card of him in my binder.  Maybe Topps didn't add him to a lot of checklists that year.

Next up are the new Nomos:

1995 Stadium Club #556

1998 Bowman International #289

I thought I owned most of Nomo's rookie cards, but was surprised to see I needed his Stadium Club card.  This Bowman parallel (which didn't scan well) is really cool as it shows off his birthplace.

2000 Pacific Invincible #56

2003 Playoff Portraits #17

Both of these cards are proof that card companies are capable of making high quality base cards.  The Nomo on the left combines cardboard and acetate... but what makes this card especially cool is that it features him with the Detroit Tigers.

The Playoff Portraits card is thick and textured to give off the feeling that you're holding a card that was actually hand painted.  If you've never owned one of these cards, it might be worth tracking down a copy.

Wrapping up today's post is a Masahiro Tanaka relic card:

2017 Topps Museum Collection

Meaningful Material #MM-MTA (#'d 18/35)

I'm not exactly sure why Topps chose to call these Meaningful Material relics... since according to the back of the card the swatch isn't from any specific game, event, or season.  But when you consider that there are only 35 copies of this card out there and Woody was kind enough to send me one of them... that's pretty cool (and meaningful).

Thank you Woody!  I have at least one more post planned that will show off some other cards that were part of this care package.

There were literally hundreds of duplicates in Woody's care package that when combined with my extras ended up filling close to two full rows in a 5,000ct. box.  In the midst of the office organization, I sorted them by player.

Anyone interested in starting a Japanese baseball player collection?  If so, shoot me an email and I'll gladly help you out.  Unfortunately I don't have many Ohtani or Ichiro duplicates, but I've got plenty of other guys like Nomo, Matsuzaka, and Okajima.

Happy Tuesday and sayonara!