Calbee Pro Yakyuu Potato Chips with Baseball Player Cards

In Japan, some kinds of snacks available in stores come with “Omake (おまけ)” or a freebie, and one of the representative examples is what I introduce here, Calbee’s “Pro Yakyuu Chips (プロ野球チップス)”.

Calbee Pro Yakyuu Chips 

Produced and sold by the leading Japanese snack food maker Calbee, “Pro Yakyuu Chips (プロ野球チップス: professional baseball chips)” is a long-selling potato chip product with a lot of fans now.

It was first introduced in 1973 by the name of “Pro Yakyuu Snack (プロ野球スナック)”, and since the first release in 1973, it has had professional baseball player cards as a freebie.

As for the current edition, a golden packet is firmly attached to the package front, in which there are 2 baseball player cards.

This time, luckily I got a special title-holder’s card which features a holographic color print on the front.

Potato Chips

I bought this 2020 edition for about 100 yen (about 1 USD) at a 7 Eleven, but the product only contains 22 grams of potato chips since its greatest selling point is the professional Japanese baseball player card.

However, as for the taste, these lightly salted crisps are just as good as the regular Calbee Potato Chips.

Professional Baseball Player Cards 

As Calbee Pro Yakyuu Chips has been around since 1973, many rare cards exist, so do a bunch of Pro Yakyuu Card collectors.

Such rare cards are highly evaluated and traded at a premium price on auction sites, like this on Yahoo Japan Auction.

(Reference Page: Wikipedia プロ野球チップス )