Wow, I did not expect to take that much time off of blogging...almost two months.  Work just happened to get really crazy with a project we are working on right when a lot of things started opening back up as we all start getting vaccinated.  Hence, I have not had a chance to sit in front of my computer much, nor work on many hobbies.  Anyway...am hoping to be back blogging once or twice a week.

I've been clearing out my sets that need checklisted, documented in my book, and then put in binders.  This M-Series set has been staring in my face since the pandemic...I purchased it during quarantine and have now just finally got around to documenting it.  It's a beauty and the first, and only, time I have seen any menko from this set indicating how rare it is out there.  One of the main reasons it is so rare is it was made in the middle of World War II.  1944 in fact.  How it survived all these years is a wonder and we'll never know.  However, we can now document it as the M441: 1944 Gunbai Math 2-3 set.  The drawings of the rikishi are crude, but totally fit in with the austere war conditions in Japan during the time.  The backs have an image of the judge's fan, or gunbai, and are printed in a vivid, red ink.  Inside this gunbai are the wrestlers names across the top (read from right to left) as well as birthplace, height, weight, favorite technique and stable information in the gunbai.  Also common during this time was a math equation and indicates it could have been issued in a children's school magazine.  They measure about 1 1/8" x 2 7/8" so a bit on the small side.

     Sumo Wrestling and Japanese baseball have been linked throughout the sports' histories.  Athletes from both sports have shared special friendships throughout the years, Japanese baseball turns to sumo wrestlers to throw out the first pitches of the season on a regular basis, and in the 1940s at the height of World War 2, the Nihon Sumo Kyokai "took over" the Korakuen Stadium to hold two of its tournaments since the Japanese Army commandeered the Sumo Kokukigan Stadium to make bombs.  Intrigued?  Read on for a few more minutes.



      Most of us have heard about the destruction that Tokyo endured during World War 2.  Sumo was not immune to it.  Sumo wrestlers were called to duty to fight in the war, sumo stables were destroyed during the fire bombing, and the military took over the Kokugikan to make bombs in 1944.  By 1944, Japan was all but defeated in the war and the preparations to repel a land invasion by the Allies was a top priority.  Consequently, this left sumo without a home to hold its tournaments.  Likewise, Japanese baseball was severely affected by the war and by 1944 could only muster a 35-game season in leaving its Korakuen Stadium open to the Nihon Sumo Kyokai which borrowed it for their May and November 1944 tournaments.  I've heard of this event happening, but I have never before seen pictures of it until a recent eBay auction that I won had me doing more research.  I picked up this circa 1946 Photographic Views of Japan: SUMO booklet that was printed for the Occupation Forces to teach them about Japanese culture.  It is part of a 10-booklet series on various subjects and written in English. 



What photos lie within?



And the Korakuen Photos:

Close-up photo of the scoreboard

Some further research let me to this picture which shows the sumo dohyo (ring) situated on none other than the 3rd-base line!



Dave at the Japanese Baseball Cards blog did a nice write up last year on the Korakuen Stadium.  Take a look at it here.

Thanks for stopping by!

I was doing some touch up work on this set and thought it would be good to share it here.  The S-Series of cards, or Kokugikan Cards, were produced to give fans an opportunity to have their favorite wrestlers of the day through these small card sets.  They were presumably sold as souvenirs at the Kokugikan (the building where tournaments are held in Tokyo).  At this time in Japan there was no TV so the only way to watch a tournament was to attend during one of the two annual tournaments in Tokyo or see the wrestlers when they went on tour around the country in between the tournaments.  Since there was no TV and most matches were broadcast on the radio, this would have been a handy set to have to visualize the wrestlers.



 The 1944 Kokugikan Set (S441) was produced towards the end of World War 2.  As you can imagine, cards/menko/bromides from during the War are excruciatingly/extremely rare to find.  The quality of this set is very low as you can see from the scans above and likely due to the very poor and worn out printing presses at the time.  Most all industry was focused on the war effort so any product that wasn't benefiting the war was likely produced in low numbers.  An unknown printer made this set, but the back of the box does say "Made in Aomi, Tokyo".  Aomi is a small area in southern Tokyo right along Tokyo Bay at the southern end of the Rainbow Bridge and this area was pretty much decimated in 1944/1945 during the fire bombing raids of World War 2.  Likely the company that produced this set was destroyed as well, but even more amazingly this set has survived all the bombing raids, reconstruction, and recovery during the 70+ years after the war.   Almost all of the S-Series sets came in small cardboard boxes like the one below.


This set does have one of the last known cards of the great Yokozuna Futabayama along with some really rare cards of low ranking Maegashira wrestlers whose only cards appear in this set.  I have the current checklist at 23 cards, but I have a feeling it should be 25 as a few high-ranking wrestlers are missing from my set (Sagamiiwa, Terunobori).