I did a search on Ebay a couple days ago and I came across a couple of PSA graded Shigeo Nagashima cards that looked a bit odd to me. See if you can pick out what's wrong:
![]()
![]()
So you've probably guessed by now that since Shigeo Nagashima never played for the Chunichi Dragons that neither player here is Shigeo Nagashima. The top card (#516) is Tatsuhiko Kimata while the bottom card (#564) is Hiroaki Inoue (with a Gene Martin cameo appearance).
I was kind of curious about how this mistake got made so I did some checking. Engel lists Inoue as card #564 in the 1974 Calbee set but does actually list Nagashima as card #516. I asked Sean of "Getting Back Into Baseball Cards...In Japan" (who knows much more about Calbee - especially 70's Calbee - than I do) if there were any weird variants with the 1974 Calbee set and he said that there weren't. He also mentioned that the SportsCard Magazine listing for the 1974 Calbee set had Kimata listed as card #516. His and my best guess is that it's a typo in Engel's listing - understandable since there are thousands of cards listed in his catalog and it'd be next to impossible to validate every entry. But neither of us have any idea why the Inoue card got labeled as a Nagashima card.
Getting cards graded has never been something I've been interested in and I've freed the one graded card I had (which really was a Nagashima). This sloppiness on PSA's part doesn't make me more interested in it.
So you've probably guessed by now that since Shigeo Nagashima never played for the Chunichi Dragons that neither player here is Shigeo Nagashima. The top card (#516) is Tatsuhiko Kimata while the bottom card (#564) is Hiroaki Inoue (with a Gene Martin cameo appearance).
I was kind of curious about how this mistake got made so I did some checking. Engel lists Inoue as card #564 in the 1974 Calbee set but does actually list Nagashima as card #516. I asked Sean of "Getting Back Into Baseball Cards...In Japan" (who knows much more about Calbee - especially 70's Calbee - than I do) if there were any weird variants with the 1974 Calbee set and he said that there weren't. He also mentioned that the SportsCard Magazine listing for the 1974 Calbee set had Kimata listed as card #516. His and my best guess is that it's a typo in Engel's listing - understandable since there are thousands of cards listed in his catalog and it'd be next to impossible to validate every entry. But neither of us have any idea why the Inoue card got labeled as a Nagashima card.
Getting cards graded has never been something I've been interested in and I've freed the one graded card I had (which really was a Nagashima). This sloppiness on PSA's part doesn't make me more interested in it.