The 1975 NST set is a tribute to Japan's Mr. Baseball, Shigeo Nagashima. Nagashima is considered by many to be Japan's all time greatest player (pre-Ichiro) and is also regarded as a cultural icon. In terms of hero worship, his popularity
is similar to that of Mickey Mantle in the U.S., only much greater. 1974 marked the final year of Nagashima's career as an active player, while 1975 was his first year as Yomiuri Giants manager. NST capitalized on these two big news
stories by creating a set of "stamps" (actually thin cards). While the majority of the cards in the set depict Nagashima (more than 100!), many other players are represented with at least one card in the set.
Since the Yomiuri Giants trained at Vero Beach with the Los Angeles Dodgers at the time, several cards depict U.S. Major Leaguers including Brooks Robinson (2 cards), Boog Powell, Ron Cey, Gene Mauch, Micky Vernon and Jack
McKeon. Americans playing in Japan in 1975 who are found in this set include Davey Johnson and George Altman.
Notable Japanese players other than Nagashima with cards in the set include 39 HOF/Golden Players, some with multiple cards. Here's the list with the number of cards in parentheses: Sadaharu Oh (11 cards), Isao Harimoto (3), Masaichi
Kaneda (4), Wally Yonamine (2), Tetsuharu Kawakami (4), Yutaka Fukumoto (2), Sachio Kinugasa, Kazuhisa Inao (2), Katsuya Nomura (2), Shinichi Eto (3), Tsuneo Horiuchi (4), Isao Shibata (4),Tatsuro Hirooka (3) Kenichi Yazawa (2),
Yoshiro Sotokoba, Senichi Hoshino, Michio Arito, Tadashi Sugiura, Koji Yamamoto, Makoto Matsubara, Masaji Hiramatsu, Tsutomu Wakamatsu, Yutaka Enatsu, Hideji Kato, Minoru Murayama, Hiroyuki Yamazaki, Morimichi Takagi, Hisashi
Yamada, Choji Murata, Yoshio Yoshida, Takeshi Koba, Osamu Mihara, Noboru Akiyama, Toshiharu Ueda, Yukio Nishimoto, Kazuto Tsuruoka, Shigeru Mizuhara, Futoshi Nakanishi, and Kazuhiro Yamauchi.
All cards are pasted into a giant sized album (Nagashima cover) that could be purchased with cards from the set. Each card is pasted into the book only along the top of the card, so that most of the card back can still be viewed.
Size: Each card is 1 15/16" x 2 7/8". The album is 10 1/2" x 13 1/2".
Condition: All cards would be Nm/Mt or Mint, but have been pasted into the album. The album is G/Vg with minor handwriting.