How very 2001 of you, Panini?
Panini Donruss baseball cards had another wrinkle thrown
into it this year. Panini offered a wrapper redemption program where collectors
would get back a few cards, including Yankees rookie Masahiro Tanaka.
These cards have done well on the initial eBay wave –
going for about $20.
However, Panini snuck in Japanese versions of the card
with everything on the front and back written in, well, Japanese. Panini didn’t
reveal how many of these cards were made but called them “extremely rare” on
its blog. The only Japanese Donruss card that has sold so far has gone for
close to $100.
These are the first ‘Yankee’ cards of Tanaka on the
market. I use Yankees in quotes because the Donruss cards are not licensed by
Major League Baseball Properties and therefore cannot use team names or logos.
This is reminiscent of the 2001 Bowman Chrome Ichiro that
featured and English and Japanese version of these cards.
Noice!
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