Back in May of last year I posted about these sumo wrestling bromides calendar cards.  The first one I picked up was of Komusubi Tamanoumi and I recently stumbled across this one of future Yokozuna Asashio shown as an ozeki.  The good news is I can now nail down the year of these cards to about 1958.  These cards are interesting and really hard to find as I have only run across these two in the 20 years of collecting.  I thought they were originally from the 1960s or 1970s so I am now not sure what company Daiichi is or what services/products it provided.  More to follow I am sure as I try and find a few more of these along the way.  I hope everyone has an awesome week!

I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.  It is a blazer down here in SoCal with temps reaching triple digits all over the place.  Great time to stay indoors or head to the beach.



Back in 1958, the children's magazine Shonen produced this 8-stamp set of famous sumo wrestlers and baseball players.  It is similar to the set I blogged about back in July, although these have an indigo tint to them.  The highlight stamp for the baseball collectors has to be the Nagashima stamp that shows him as a baby-faced rookie, although the other three baseball players (Kawakami, Kaneda, & Nakanishi) are all HOFs as well (can a Japanese baseball collector confirm?).  For the sumo collectors, this set has all three of the powerhouse wrestlers of the era (Wakanohana, Asashio, & Tochinishiki).  A simple design on the front and blank on the back, these newly-discovered stamps are now catalogued as the Z582: 1958 Shonen Sumo and Baseball Stamps.



Thanks for stopping by and stay safe out there.  じゃあ　またね

This Japanese sumo wrestling menko set captures a little-known piece of Japanese history from 1958.  Flash back two years before 1958 to 1956 and the Japanese had established their first research base in Antarctica to world exclaim and was a symbol of Japanese national pride.  When it came time for the replacement team to arrive in 1958, they were unable to get close enough to the research station and the team that was already there was forced to evacuate and abandon the station, but not before leaving behind 15 Sakhalian Husky sled dogs.  Leaving food for the dogs and thinking they would soon be back, the scientists evacuated by helicopter.  Unable to get back for entire year and assuming the dogs would all be dead, the returning scientists were shocked to learn that two of the dogs survived: Taro and Jiro.  These dogs became national heroes and were all over the news.  They eventually got their own stamps and several movies were made about the story!  Below is an actual picture of Jiro and Taro when they were found.  This 1958 menko set, however, was printed to celebrate the 1958 return expedition, before it turned ill fated and the dogs were abandoned.  There are many great-looking scenes from the expedition on the back of the menko that capture the imagination of any kid reading the magazine.  It is so rare that I have only ever seen one of them and don't even know which magazine it would have come out of.  As you can tell from the picture, these would have come as a sheet and each child would have had to cut out the menko individually.  Thanks for stopping by and letting me share a little piece of Japanese history!



Taro and Jiro greeted by the men from the 3rd Expedition that found them.  Photo courtesy of Dogs in History Blog.

Fuji and I have a little dual-post action going on this Saturday where each of us is posting our Top-10 favorite unopened boxes we have in our collections.  Check out his here.  It was tough narrowing it down to ten, but I was able to break them down into different categories to help me decide.  From #10 to #1, here is what I came up with:

#10 (Also known as my favorite Vintage Japanese Sport Box) - 1991 BBM Baseball



#9 (Also known as my favorite Collector's Choice Box) - 2013 BBM P. League Bowling

I've long know about this karuta game set, but only recently managed to pick up the picture cards.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the reader cards to complete the set, but hopefully will find some soon.  This karuta link explains the game a bit more, but in a nutshell this game is played in groups of at least three.  The game begins with all the picture cards face up.  Someone reads the reader card and then the other children try to determine which picture card it corresponds to.  The first person to slap the picture card keeps it and then the next reader card is read.  The person with the most picture cards at the end is the winner.

This K581: 1958 Star Karuta set was first identified by the baseball community and is catalogued by them as JK 25: 1958 Pink Border due to the 15 baseball players found in the set.  There are also 13 sumo wrestlers in the set (hence the sumo catalogue number) as well as famous singers and actors.  The one "oddball" card?  Superman makes an appearance as the letter "Ro".


Issued in an unknown magazine in 1958, these karuta cards measure 2 3/8" x 3 3/8" and came in perforated sheets that had kids separate the cards individually after they purchased the magazine.  They are blank backed, but are printed on fairly thick cardboard stock.

Anyone else ever play karuta?

I like these multi-purpose sets that were issued in the 1950s.  This particular one has a manga story on the front along with the hiragana alphabet for playing karuta, and sumo wrestlers on the back.  A lot of times these came in kids magazines which inevitably leads to crooked edges from unskilled scissor use, paper loss, and general disarray.....all of which I love.  These cards actually were held in a Japanese child's hand 60 years ago.  History right here.  I'm not up on my 1950s Japanese manga series which might help determine which magazine these came in, but fortunately the sumo wrestlers have rank information which can help us narrow down an exact year....1958 in this case since Shinobuyama only held the Sekiwake rank for three tournaments in the latter half of 1958.  The cards measure 1.75" x 2.5"...approximately.

These are the only 6 cards from this set I have seen in all my years of collecting...and until I find out if they were actually issued in a magazine, I'll catalogue them under the karuta (K-series) column...this one being the K581 set.  Here is the current checklist:

い - Yokozuna Wakanohana
ろ - Yokozuna Tochinishiki
へ - Yokozuna Chiyonoyama
ほ - Ozeki Asashio
ぬ - Ozeki Kotogahama
り - Sekiwake Shinobuyama

Kids will be kids, not matter what nationality.  Here, Ozeki Asashio is holding a practice session for a group of children.  These kids' sessions were usually done in conjunction with regional tours in between the main tournaments and a way for the wrestlers to be accessible to the public.  Bad photo timing, an annoying wedgie, and poor quality control gives us this 1958 Sumo Wrestling Menko Card.




Does anyone else have any ill-timed photos?

This is one set I've had my eye on for quite sometime.....probably 3-4 years or so. The same auction would always come up and it never seemed to sell, but I finally pulled the trigger and was lucky enough to end up with 5 sheets of this new set.  I've labeled and catalogued this new set in my book as the 1958 All Star Matching Game (G582). I'm still working on the company that produced these and have cross checked the set in Engel's book, but he doesn't have it listed there. This set is easy to nail down as being from 1958 as it shows Asashio ranked as an Ozeki, but he promoted to Yokozuna in late 1958. It also has 4 rookie cards of the baseball player Nagashima as he started playing in 1958. So we have 4 previously unknown and uncatalogued rookie cards of Shigeo Nagashima which is a pretty amazing find as well for the Japanese Baseball Card collectors.


There are 54 cards in the set...52 regular cards and 2 jokers.  Each card has pictures of a famous person from 1958 and each person has four different cards (Same playing card number, but 4 different suits).  Quick public math verified by photos results in 13 different people depicted in the set with 4 cards each. Sadly, I'm not versed in 1958 Japanese actors or music stars so I don't know who the majority of the people are(yet), but I do know the 3 sumo wrestlers and 2 baseball players (thanks NPB Card Guy for the help on Masaichi Kaneda).  It's not surprising that the established Yokozuna weren't included in this set as they were nearing the end of the prime and the new youngsters and popular wrestlers in Wakanohana, Asashio, and Kotogahama were in much better favor.


Here is the current checklist:

KD - Unknown Actor - Red Background
KS - Unknown Actor - Blue Background
KH - Unknown Actor - Pink Background
KC - Unknown Actor - Green Background
QD - Unknown Actor - Red Background
QS - Unknown Actor - Orange Background
QH - Unknown Actor - Green Background
QC - Unknown Actor - Red Background
JD - Unknown Actress - Blue Background
JS - Unknown Actress - Red Background
JH - Unknown Actress - Pink Background
JC - Unknown Actress - Green Background
10D - Unknown Actress - Green Background
10S - Unknown Actress - Blue Background
10H - Unknown Actress - Red Background
10C - Unknown Actress - Pink Background
9D - Unknown Actor - Red Background
9S - Unknown Actor - Yellow Background
9H - Unknown Actor - Red Background
9C - Unknown Actor - Yellow Background
8D - Masaichi Kaneda - Yellow Background
8S - Masaichi Kaneda - Green Background
8H - Masaichi Kaneda - Red Background
8C - Masaichi Kaneda -Blue Background
7D - Shigeo Nagashima - Blue Background
7S - Shigeo Nagashima - Green Background
7H - Shigeo Nagashima - Pink Background
7C - Shigeo Nagashima - Red Background
6D - Unknown Singer - Red Background
6S - Unknown Singer -Yellow Background
6H - Unknown Singer - Blue Background
6C - Unknown Singer - Red Background
5D - Unknown Actor - Red Background
5S - Unknown Actor - Green Background
5H - Unknown Actor - Pink Background
5C - Unknown Actor - Yellow Background
4D - Ozeki Asashio - Colored Circle Background
4S - Ozeki Asashio - Red/Yellow/Blue Background
4H - Ozeki Asashio - Colored Flower Background
4C - Ozeki Asashio - Blue Background
3D - Unknown Actor - Red Background
3S - Unknown Actor - Green Background
3H - Unknown Actor - Yellow Background
3C - Unknown Actor - Red Background
2D - Ozeki Kotogahama - Wave Background
2S - Ozeki Kotogahama - Star Background
2H - Ozeki Kotogahama - Circle Background
2C - Ozeki Kotogahama - Fan Background
1D - Yokozuna Wakanohana - Orange Background
1S - Yokozuna Wakanohana - Red Background
1H - Yokozuna Wakanohana - Blue Background
1C - Yokozuna Wakanohana - Pink Background


I have 5 sheets of these so one or two will likely make their way to eBay.

Level 3 Winner Menko (Note Red 3)