Checklist Translations: 1998 C&C 1997 Chinese Pro-Baseball (CPBL) [COMPLETE]

    In 1998, Golden International Corp. (國堡國際股份有限公司), was enlisted to produce the yearly cards for CPBL.  The company produced two different sets, C&C and Diamond, that represented different price points in the hobby, similar to how Score issued both Select and Pinnacle or how Fleer issued Ultra and Flair.  Neither set was big on presenting statistics or biographical information, instead focusing on the photography, offering quality color photos on both sides of the card.  The C&C set was the pricier of the two offerings, selling in 1998 for 50 yuan (Taiwan New Dollars), which was roughly $1.60 U.S.  Production was reported at 8,000 boxes of 36 packs each.  Not sure exactly how many cards came per pack, and I have been unable to find any images of the packaging.

     The C&C set consisted of 221 base cards, organized by team in the order of the standings for the 1997 season.  In a move that I'm surprised I've never seen with an American card company, the base checklists for both the C&C and Diamond sets are identical.  The insert sets in the C&C set covered the more standard subjects seen in most CPBL sets, Best 9, Gold Gloves, Monthly MVPs and seasonal Award Winners.  Being the "high-end" set, the C&C inserts all feature some manner of die-cutting.

• All-League Best 9 (9 cards) limited to 5555 cards
• Gold Gloves (9 cards) limited to 5555 cards
• Monthly MVP (8 cards) limited to 3200
• Award Winner (14 cards) limited to 1200

The set is described in this blog post, from which almost all of the information in this post was derived:
http://jackli7751.pixnet.net/blog/post/28095699

The Award Winner set is shown here:
http://jackli7751.pixnet.net/blog/post/41504267

The Best Nine set is shown here:
http://jackli7751.pixnet.net/blog/post/41712934

The Gold Glove set is shown here:
http://jackli7751.pixnet.net/blog/post/41846662

The standard base card front and back:

Chao-Huang Lin

Community Project: Help validate the 1985 MSA Subway Discs checklist

     I began this project on the Freedom Cardboard and Net54Baseball forums, but thought I should also post it here in hope of attracting a wider audience as I know there are many collectors who do not frequent the hobby message boards.  This post will be updated and re-published as new information is uncovered.

     1985 saw the release of two nearly identical sets of MSA discs (which unfortunately looked almost exactly like most of the previous years MSA discs sets). There was the Thom McAn/JOX set, issued as a promotion for Thom McAn's JOX tennis shoes, and the completely anonymous Subway set, that looked exactly the same, but was blank on the back. 

Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Minor League Baseball Card Checklists (Online)

(click here to skip the wandering preamble and get straight to the important stuff)

     A few years ago, when I seriously got back into collecting baseball cards, I decided to pick up where I left off on my Hensley Meulens collection.  I had mostly stopped collecting and following baseball after the strike in 1994.  Then came school, marriage, the beginnings of a career, and for awhile there, I was more concerned with just keeping the lights on, the rent paid, gas in the car and food on the table, so I had almost no idea what had happened in the intervening 8-9 years I was away from the hobby.  When I got back into it, I found that Dave Winfield had been elected into the Hall of Fame, Matt Williams was named in the Mitchell Report and Meulens had spent three years in Japan (later making a couple of unsuccessful returns to the Majors).

   As I started to jump back into things, I discovered the joys (and pains) of eBay, online trading sites (SportsCardForum and The Bench Trading being the main two I've settled into, later expanding to Freedom Cardboard, mostly for the conversation), the expansive sites based around statistics (Baseball Almanac, Baseball Reference and The Baseball Cube being my most frequented) and all manner of collector's blogs and hobby news sites.  But that only showed me that there were some glaring gaps in my collection and knowledge from outside the mainstream of the North American hobby.

     As I caught up with lots of the Meulens cards I'd missed, I had to find resources for the Japanese cards about which, up to this point, I knew absolutely nothing.  As I hunted for information on them, I encountered great sites like JapaneseBaseball.com, The Japanese Baseball Card Blog, Rob's Japanese Cards and Prestige Collectibles.  Through Rob Fitts' site, I was able to pick up most of Meulens' BBM and Takara cards, but came up short on the Calbee cards.  I only knew those cards existed because Beckett happened to include a few years of Japanese cards in their online price guide.  However, I knew there had to be more, and just in learning about the BBM and Takara sets, I knew Beckett was far from complete or accurate in their listings.  Everyone I encountered or asked for help suggested I pick up a copy of Gary Engel's Japanese Baseball Card Checklist & Price Guide.  So I picked up the 6th edition.  And learned that there was an enormous world of baseball cards in Japan.  And Hensley Meulens had a few more cards that I needed to find. (A 7th edition was released in early 2010 and is available from Prestige Collectibles.)