Shohei Ohtani is having another great year and I thought it might be a good idea to dust this post off and update it slightly for accuracy. Ohtani's Japanese rookie cards often get overlooked or ignored by many collectors because of the difficulty in understanding the Japanese baseball card market.  BBM, much like Topps, is the dominate company distributing baseball cards in Japan and has been producing baseball cards since 1991.  There are numerous other collectors out there that are much more knowledgeable than me on Japanese baseball cards, but I wanted to highlight Ohtani's first true rookie cards from the 2013 Japanese BBM 1st Version Set.  This is the first regular BBM set that features Ohtani (not counting the Rookie Edition set) and features 11 different cards based on the iconic #183 pitching image!  BBM calls their releases 1st Version and 2nd Version which is comparable to Topps Series 1 and Series 2.  Check out my YouTube video at the very end!

2013 BBM 1st Version Box

This is the box that could land you the following cards:

* Red Wing #183 - Base

* Red Wing #183 - Silver Foil Signature

* Red Wing #183 - Gold Foil Signature #ed to 100

* Red Wing #183 - Holo Foil Signature #ed to 50

* Red Wing #183 - Red Foil Signature #ed to 25

* Red Wing #183 - Blue Foil Signature #ed to 1

* Green Wing  #183 - Rookie Foil #ed to 100

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Base

Ohtani's most popular and iconic rookie card.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Silver Foil Signature

Affordable silver facsimile signature parallel that is unnumbered. (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Gold Foil Signature #ed/100

Spendy gold facsimile signature parallel numbered to 100.  Difficult to find. (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Holo Foil Signature #ed/50

Very difficult to find & expensive hologram foil parallel numbered to only 50.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Red Foil Signature #ed/25

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Red Wing #183 - Blue Foil Signature #ed/1

No image available.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Green Wing #183 - Rookie Foil #ed/100

A few of these show up for auction on occasion.  Very expensive and numbered to 100.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

2013 BBM 1st Version Green Wing #KP2

Handed out during a family event at Kamagaya Stadium (Photo courtesy of Ameba)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Pink Wing #SL07

Handed out at another stadium event (Photo courtesy of YJA)

2013 BBM 1st Version Purple Wing #183 - Sports Card Magazine (SCM) Base

Issue #98 of Sports Card Magazine had 5 original promotional cards including this one of Ohtani.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM 1st Version Purple Wing #183 - Sports Card Magazine (SCM) Silver Foil

Randomly inserted in SCM #98 were silver facsimile signature parallels.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

There is nothing hotter than Shohei Ohtani right now in Major League Baseball.  He is on fire and looks to make a run for MVP this year....if he keeps this stat trend through the remainder of the year, I am going to call him a shoe in.  Believe it or not, Ohtani has been doing this for 8 years now and before he made an impact on the MLB scene in 2018, he was the two-way star of Japan destined for bigger and better things.  He has a ton of Japanese cards and a good handful of rookie cards from 2013, but none are more iconic than his 2013 Japanese BBM Flagship Series 1 Rookie #183.  Here is a guide to the 11 variations of his important, iconic, and impactful rookie card.  I apologize in advance as some of the images are taken from Yahoo Japan Auctions website.

2013 BBM Series 1 Box

This is the box that could land you the Red #183, Red #183 - Silver Signature, Red #183 - Gold Signature, Red #183 - Holofoil Signature Rookies, Red #183 - Red Signature, Red #183 - Blue Signature, and Green #183 - Rookie Parallel.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Red #183

Ohtani's most popular and iconic rookie card.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Red #183 - Silver Signature

Affordable silver facsimile signature parallel that is unnumbered. (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Red #183 - Gold Signature #ed/100

Spendy gold facsimile signature parallel numbered to 100.  Difficult to find. (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Red #183 - Holofoil Signature #ed/50

Very difficult to find & expensive hologram foil parallel numbered to only 50.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Red #183 - Red Signature #ed/25

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Red #183 - Blue Signature #ed/1

No image available.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Green #183 - Rookie Foil Parallel #ed/100

I have only seen one of these ever show up for auction.  Very expensive and numbered to 100.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

2013 BBM Series 1 Green #KP2

Handed out during a family event at Kamagaya Stadium (Photo courtesy of Ameba)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Pink #SL07

Handed out at another stadium event (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Purple #183 - Sports Card Magazine (SCM)

Issue #98 of Sports Card Magazine had 5 original promotional cards including this one of Ohtani.

___________________________________________________________________________________

2013 BBM Series 1 Purple #183 - Sports Card Magazine (SCM) Silver Signature

Randomly inserted in SCM #98 were silver facsimile signature parallels.  (Photo courtesy of YJA)

___________________________________________________________________________________

There are several variations to Shohei Ohtani's 2013 BBM 1st Version Rookie card.  One of them is the "KP2 Green Version" which was given away as a promotional gift during Golden Week family festivities, called Family Series, at the Fighters Farm Team's Kamagaya Stadium from 29 April - 5 May 2013.  If you purchased more ￥500 at the gift shop during the Family Series, you would receive one of these two cards shown below, one of which is the KP2 Green Version. The family could also come out and participate in family activities like batting class, catch with players, photos with players, and of course eat some amazing food at Café Cubby.  Some great info can be found here.

KP2 Front - Image courtesy of Officecab

KP2 Back - Image courtesy of Nippon Ham Fighters

KP1 Front - Image courtesy of Officecab

KP1 Back - Image courtesy of Officecab

Ohtani mania is in full force which led to the April 2018 Sports Market Report being almost exclusively about Japanese baseball cards including Ohtani, Ichiro, and several key vintage sets.  I wanted to give a quick shoutout to my fellow Japanese baseball card collectors who made it into the latest issue of PSA's Sports Market Report (SMR).  Dave over at the Japanese Baseball Cards blog is featured in the articles.  All of the articles are also online:

Image from Japanese Baseball Card blog

Ichiro Article
Sadaharu Oh Article
1967 Kabaya Leaf Article
Vintage Collecting
Modern Collecting

There is some good background and useful information for sumo collectors in the articles, although the sumo timelines and card cataloguing system follow a slightly different path.  It is nice to see the Japanese cards getting some lovin'.

I was also inspired to pick up two unopened boxes of 2013 BBM 1st Version which contains Ohtani's rookie card.  Now what to do with them.