野球

Calbee is a major Japanese food company specializing in potato chip and various other snack foods. The company, established in 1949 as Matsuo Food Processing Co., Ltd. in Hiroshima, also dabbles in granola products among other types of food.


Oddly enough, it's also in the baseball card business. Each year Calbee releases it's series of Pro Yakyu Chips in groceries and convenience stores all across Japan.

The chips themselves are standard fare. But glued to the back of each bag is a gray foil wrapper containing two baseball cards featuring players and managers from the 12 Nippon Professional Baseball teams.

The cards are usually released in sets, with the first going on sale around the start of the season, with the others being released later in the year.


Two sets for the 2010 season are currently available. There are 192 "regular" player cards with a host of special cards to go out and find.

Calbee's website contains a database of all the cards from each set dating back to 1998.

The card database can be found here (in Japanese)

© Jason Coskrey & JapanVisitor.com

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