I always considered the 2012 series of cards to be significant to Ichiro collectors like myself, As I stated before its my favorite set since its Ichiro's last year with the Mariners and last year with Topps. I believed I have seen every 2012 card released but somehow I totally missed the rare Japan-fractors Bowman Sterling set. This was some sort of subset to the standard Bowman Sterling set that had Japanese stars in it including Yu Darvish and Ichiro. I have only recently seen these hit the market in /25 die cut base cards. They were going for serious coin $150-200. I then saw the 2 variations of the Relic die cuts /5. I happened to make a deal on one and found 2 more that surfaced and immediately contacted the owners of these cards and made a deal to acquire them. These are one of my favorite new cards in the set, they are a bit taller then standard cards so they wont even fit in a one touch holder!
Another recent arrival came in the newer '14 National Treasures Flawless set. I was always a huge fan of the Flawless design when they first hit with Basketball. They were very subtly beautiful and had an embedded gem inside each one. They just had a great very high end look to it. When I found out Baseball was going to have this design and Ichiro was in the checklist I became super excited. I was able to make some deals and complete the 3x card flawless set Diamond /20, Emerald /5 and the Diamond 1/1.
Japan Fractors /5
Flawless Diamond /20
Flawless Emerald /5
Flawless Diamond 1/1
