The Cold War in the 1950s must have been as stressful time as any to be alive given that nuclear weapons were now a real possibility and that at any time World War 3 could have ended the world as we know it.  Thankfully cooler heads prevailed to get us out of it, but I am sure it has left a lifelong impression on many citizens all over the world.  Japan was not immune from the Cold War and were caught in the political crossfire of Russia, China, Korea, and United States.  Having no offensive capability of their own, Japan relied heavily on the United States for protection and the weapons we employed during that time we fused into the lives of many children.  Menko companies took advantage of that fascination and made this set in 1956 that highlighted the popular rikishi of the era as well as some of the weapons children had no doubt read about or seen in books.

This M5623: 1956 Military 10 set is extremely hard to find...I am not sure why as most 1950s menko sets were made in decent quantities.  Maybe the war theme was too much for the general population at the time.  I have only seen these 6 menko in my over 20 years of collecting making them Extremely Rare.  Each menko measures approximately 1 3/8" x 2 3/4".

Have a great weekend and sayonara!

We are well into our 6th month of coronavirus lock down and I sure hope everyone out there is doing well.  These are once-in-a lifetime, life-changing events so I can't complain about the relatively minor impacts my family and I are going through.  One thing that has affected my hobby of collecting sumo cards is the shipping of material from Japan now takes 2 months instead of 1-2 weeks.  Alas, the bright side is I often forget what I bought so there are great surprises when I get to open the boxes.  One of these nice surprises is this set of 1956 black and white bromide cards that was issued as a free giveaway to the purchasers of the March 1956 Sumo "相撲" magazine.  They are postcard sized with blank backs and came in this thin paper sleeve.  The entire set is 9 cards which represents the top 9 wrestlers at the time.  I have another set of these, but for almost 10 years I never knew how they were issued so I had originally cataloged them as a 1956 BB-Series (Black and White Bromide) set.  Now they are cataloged as a Z-Series (Magazine Insert) set with the designation Z563: 1956 Sumo Magazine Facsimile Bromide Set.  Here is the checklist:

Yokozuna Tochinishiki

Yokozuna Yoshibayama

Yokozuna Chiyonoyama

Yokozuna Kagamisato

Ozeki Wakanohana

Ozeki Ouchiyama

Ozeki Matsunobori

Sekiwake Asashio

Sekiwake Tokitsuyama

Stay safe and have a great week!

Well, I just hit my 300th post!  Hard to believe that I had 300 different things to write about and I want to thank all my readers out there for sticking with me.  Looking forward to another 300.

I'm going to keep today simple.  A fellow sumo enthusiast sent me this card of hers that she had with a bunch of other items...she knew it would go to a good home.  Boy was she right!  Although this BC561: 1956 Marusan Jyunishi Nagai 3-4-6 set is pretty common and menko pop up all the time, surprisingly I did not have this particular menko of then Maegashira Tamanoumi.  It is not in perfect shape and well-loved but that is exactly how I like them!

Tamanoumi competed in 4 different decades and was a staple on the banzuke throughout his career.  To top it off, he won the November 1957 championship when he was ranked only at Maegashira 14 with a perfect 15-0 record; a record that even some yokozuna aren't able to accomplish.

Stay safe out there and thanks for dropping by for a quick sumo menko tidbit!

I don't promote smoking and occasionally like a good cigar, but the 1950s were a flamboyant era when smoking was all the rage and fashion.  Did you know that in the 1950s almost half of the Japanese population smoked or consumed tobacco?  In fact, in 1956 the per-capita consumption was over 1400 cigarettes!  That equates to every Japanese man, woman, and child each smoking over 1400 cigarettes in 1956 alone.  Crazy....but I digress.  Sumo wrestlers were not immune to the influence of smoking as captured on one of the only known sumo cards that shows a wrestler smoking.  Here is Yokozuna Tochinishiki having a nice drag in his yukata...given that his chomage is done up, this picture was taken right before or after a match or before a special event. What are your thoughts with tobacco products being "consumed" on trading cards?

Recently, I stumbled across these somewhat unusual "cards" in the form of bookmarks.  Actually, they are bookmarks, but still a fun paper collectible.  I have only ever seen these four cards alluding to how rare they are.  I usually do an occasional search for sumo bookmarks and just happened to time it right for these to be at auction.  It looks like these were issued in uncut sheet that kids would have to cut out and were likely issued in kids magazines which were really popular in the 1950s. I love the black look on these.....pretty sharp looking which is why I picked them up.  Notice the uncut hole at the top where the bookmark string would go in...I'm wondering if the string came within the magazine as well.  Oh well, what do you think?  Anyone else collect oddball sports ephemera?




Have a great weekend!!!

Work has been busy for me of late and I am finding it harder and harder to spend time on my sumo wrestling card hobby.  When I do, though, I try and maximize my time with cataloguing a set or two before my bedtime calls...as is the case with this set.  This set is a new one for me and the first time I have seen this print style on a sumo menko card.  From 1956, this set has a shiny silver printing technique for the front.  It doesn't show well in the scans, but this set uses a black ink printed on this shiny silver paper that is then affixed to a thin piece of cardboard.  The fact that I have only seen these 4 menko cards in all my years of collecting must mean they are extremely rare and it appears very few have survived today.  I only recognize a few of the wrestlers, but some of the photos have been used in other sets.  Right now I am going to catalogue it as the BB5612 Set - 1956 Silver Fronts.  It might be another 20 years before I find any more of these, but I'm glad I can document this little piece of history. 

These are definitely a first for sumo wrestling menko cards.  Up until now, I have never discovered any promotional items for sumo wrestling movies.  There certainly have been a few for TV shows, but this is the first movie one.  In 1956, the Nikatsu Company released a movie base on the true story of Wakanohana's life.  The title of the movie was called "The Wakanohana Story - Devil of the Dohyo". At this point in Wakanohana's career he had just been promoted to Ozeki, but was well on his way to Yokozuna.  He was by far the most popular wrestler of the time with his skill, speed, and good looks.  People were eating up anything and everything made or printed about Wakanohana.  M-series menko had reached their popularity peak in 1956 so it made sense that this medium would be used to promote the movie.  There were two menko cards made for promotional events and are shown below.  Wakanohana was promoted to Yokozuna in 1958 and retired in 1962 with a changing the guard to sumo's new hero, the great Taiho.  He eventually headed the Sumo Association from 1988-1992 and passed away in 2010.

 

It is not everyday that I get excited about new sumo wrestling sets.  For sure I see my fair share of new stuff and love to catalog it all, but rarely does a set stand out as something unique and outright beautiful.  The majority of the sumo menko and card sets use stock images to create the cards, while others use decent drawings to create the cards.  Not this set, these are some high quality, hand-drawn pictures of the actual wresters that they eventually printed on the cards.  What am I talking about?  The K562 1962 Sports Karuta set in fact.  Here are some images to prove that I am not lying.


This is actually a karuta set, although it doesn't have your typical hiragana/katakana letter on the front.  There are corresponding reader cards, but not in the auction I picked up.  This set likely came in a magazine from 1956 as there are perforations and cut lines on the cards indicating the intent for a kid to cut them out of the magazine.  There are 29 cards in the set including these 6 sumo wrestlers, 14 baseball players, 4 pro wrestlers, 2 boxers, 1 swimmer, 1 marathon runner, and 1 judo fighter.  All of them are equally amazing in terms of image quality.  They measure approximately 2.0" x 2.5", but I am not sure of the real intended dimensions as the set I picked up is somewhat hacked....but I love it since it shows that some kid back in the day actually held these and cherished them as well.

Kind of reminds you of the 1953 Topps Baseball set, right?