I mentioned in yesterday's Tim Lincecum post that I'd grabbed a couple of wrestling cards from the seller in order to take advantage of combined shipping. What I got from him was some of the tougher pulls from the BBM True Heart Wrestling products, the Polaroid-style Cheki cards.
In my quest to better understand what it is I'm collecting, I decided to try figuring out why these photo inserts are called Cheki. It didn't really take me long to find out, as I came across an article about the Fujifilm company's Instax line of cameras, which produce these little instant snapshots. They are marketed as Cheki to young women, apparently with great success. In this digital age, a film camera is seen as a fun novelty, and the Cheki cameras are selling at a pace that nearly outpaces Fujifilm's digital models. Moving on to the actual cards I bought, you can clearly see the Fujifilm and instax labeling on the back of the photos. It all Check(i)s out!
藤ヶ崎矢子 - Yako Fujigasaki
This first autographed photo comes from the 2016 BBM True Heart product. The wrestler is Yako Fujigasaki. She appears in a lot of the photos that get posted to the JWP Facebook page, but I don't know much about her outside of that. This card is numbered # 4 / 8. In previous sets these were the hardest pulls, but in 2016 BBM included special inscription autographs that were # / 5. These photos are probably still cooler than those autographs.
永島 千佳世 - Chikayo Nagashima
This one comes from the 2015 BBM True Heart product and features Chikayo Nagashima, another wrestler that I don't know much about. She's been wrestling for a long time, debuting in 1995. According to Wikipedia her last couple of matches have been against Ayako Hamada, whose cards are collected by buckstorecards as part of his 2/14 birthday collection. This photo is numbered # 1 / 7.
Although I don't know much about these two wrestlers, it was nice to find these photos for such a good price. It would take several boxes to pull even one of these, and after the exchange rate and shipping from Japan it's hard to get unopened boxes right now for less than $65-70 apiece. I haven't purchased any boxes since my initial order when they released. I don't know that I'll be able to pick up any more of the 2016 product in unopened form. I'll need to save my pennies just to be able to buy some of the 2017 when it releases.
These cards are awesome! I wonder if each of the cards of each wrestler are slightly different making them technically 1 of a kind pieces.
ReplyDeleteThese are actual instant photos with numbered stickers on the back, so unless the wrestlers are very good at staying still they will all be different.
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