2001 Teleca Game Cards

Unlike most Teleca sets at the time, this 2001 set was not sold in packs. These were sold by team in generic paper box sets. The only way to know what team it was in the box was to look at the back where there was a small window to see a partial logo of one of the teams. I had never seen these packaged before, only in their plastic wrap. I knew of most of the foreign players because I had been looking for this set for some time. This is also the only authorized Korean "game" set I know about.

There are eight teams total: Doosan Bears, Lotte Giants, Haitai Tigers, Hanwha Eagles, Hyundai Unicorns, LG Twins, Samsung Lions, and SK Wyverns. Each of these teams has 16-18 cards. These sets are unnumbered and have the players uniform number on the front. I used these numbers for the checklists on TCDB here. I was able to purchase these five teams for $60, including the Lee Seung-yuop which can sell for $20 raw. I know Koreans who are trying to sell these for $20-$50 per team.

To my knowledge, this is the last set of official cards to have foreigners, and the last set Teleca produced. This does not include any team sets issued since (i.e. Doosan's oversized team sets starting in 2011). I still need Haitai, Lotte and LG. These too will be hard to come by, and most likely expensive.


My scanner can't focus well on some items. This is an image of three sets in their boxes. You can see partial logos of teams inside the small window.

This is my best guess as to how play the game. I have never seen dice sold with anything related to this set but I am unsure what else the numbers 2-12 could mean. I also have never seen a boardgame sheet (like the 2014 Duael Ntreev Super Star set had). In Woods' case, his batting ability is 11 and his speed is 2. If you roll a 2-4, it appears you would be out(?), 5-6 would be a hit (안타), 7 is a double (2루), and 8-12 would be a home run (홈런).

In the case of ace pitcher Min-tae Jung, his pitching ability is 9, physical strength as 7. If you produce 2-5 strikeout, 6-7 groundball, 8 flyball, 9 foul ball, 10-12 is surrendering a hit.

Team mascots appear on the back of each player card

Seung-yuop Lee

Chang-yong Lim

Manny Martinez

Tyrone Woods

Mike Farmer

Min-ho Kim

Jin-man Park

Tom Quinlan

Min-tae Chung

Jin-young Lee

Tilson Brito

Sung-woo Kang

Jay Davis

Jae-ho Back

Kyu-soo Cho

I will now be in search of those three teams I need. I have a feeling it will be a while before I spot them, and probably not at an affordable price. It's a shame Teleca didn't stick around beyond 2001. I don't think any official Korean full-league sets were produced between 2002 and 2013. That's a long time to go without baseball cards! (Not counting the unauthorized 2010 set). By that time that bootleg set was released, seven years had passed with no sets being issued by anyone. Guess I'm grateful to whomever made them.

Determining year of Yomiuri Giants playing cards

This is more of a note for myself. I bought two Lee Seung-yuop playing cards a little while ago but just started researching them. I was unsure if they were from the same deck but they have the same back and assumed so. Lee played for the Yomiuri Giants from 2006-2010. I decided to look at the other players in the set I was able to determine in various pictures on websites as I do not have a deck in-hand.

Pitcher Hiroshi Kisanuki is on top of the wrapped deck, thus the only visible card (of wrapped deck). Looking at their roster, I see that he was not on the Giants in 2010 but was for the others years in question. So 2010 is out.



Another image I found was of Koji Uehara and Shinnosuke Abe. I knew Abe was on the team for many years (2001-2019) and was of no help. I knew Uehara played in the MLB but didn't know much else. I looked at his BR bio and it shows he was on the Giants from 1999-2008, he went to play for the Baltimore Orioles in 2009. Thus this card set cannot be from 2009.




So this leaves 2006-2008.

Lee had two different numbers while with the Giants. In his first year, 2006, he wore #33. In the other four years, 2007-2010, he wore #25. In this deck he is wearing #25.. so 2006 is out.



2007-2008 remain.

Looking at other images I've found online, it's too hard to determine the names or players on the rest of the cards. Can you help determine if this is a deck for the 2007 or 2008 Yomiuri Giants?



I am not sure when I will receive the deck in hand from my friend in Japan but wanted to determine ASAP because these two Lee cards will then need to be sent to friends in the US for a PSA submission.

UPDATE: A few hours after posting this, I think I figured it out. I zoomed in and saw a foreign player (#42) too light-skinned to be Marc Kroon. I looked up Kroon and he wasn't a Giant in 2007. I looked up the 2007 Giants roster and I saw Jeremy Powell listed with #42. He was on the Giants in 2006 and 2007 seasons. Kroon came to the team in 2008 so I'm sure this is a 2007 set and I will go with that.