This extremely rare karuta set was only recently re-discovered after a few sets were dug up from old boxes and storage areas in Japan.  Karuta is an extremely popular card game in Japan, especially among children, and this set appears to have been aimed at that audience.  Extremely well-done cartoon drawings show various sports and entertainment figures that were popular in Japan in late 1953.  Given the fact that Yokozuna Haguroyama was not featured in this set and he retired at the end of 1953, it is likely that these were issued as a special giveaway in a 1954 New Year Edition of a Children's Magazine.  Among the people the artist captured were 11 sumo wrestlers, 9 baseball players, 1 boxer, and a variety of actors, actresses, and singers.  These cards are all hand-cut lending the thought that these were issued in uncut sheets in magazines and subsequently cut by the purchaser.  Here is a brief checklist of both the sumo wrestlers and baseball players:

Sumo Rikishi:

- う Maegashira Shimizugawa

- か Yokozuna Kagamisato

- さ Komusubi Asashio

- っYokozuna Chiyonoyama

- と Sekiwake Wakanohana

- ね Maegashira Matsunobori

- ひ Yokozuna Yoshibayama

- ふ Ozeki Mitsuneyama

- む Yokozuna Azumafuji

- れ Sekiwake Tokitsuyama

- わ Ozeki Tochinishiki

Baseball Players:

- い Chusuke Kizuka

- こ Michio Nishizawa

- せ Takahiko Bessho

- そ Tetsuharu Kawakami

- た Fumio Fujimura

- て Hiroshi Oshita

- ま Futoshi Nakanishi

- み Kaoru Betto

- る Susumu Yuki

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?

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?

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