The Blog is not quite dead yet: Nintendo Hanafuda Cards Arrived in Mail

It has been about four months since my last post, how has everyone been doing?  Well I hope.

Unfortunately this is more like a visit than a resumption of regular content.  Work and family commitments have me so swamped that I no longer have time to play old video games, let alone write about (or, perhaps more importantly, shop for) them!

Still, I did snag one neat thing on Yahoo Auctions the other day (online shopping I can at least spare a few minutes for from time to time) and thought I`d resurrect the blog to make a little post about it. 

What I picked up was a box of old Nintendo Hanafuda cards.

As everyone with an interest in Nintendo knows, before it was a video game maker, or even a toy maker, it was a playing card maker.  I had been wanting to find an old set of Nintendo playing cards for a while and when I found these, complete with the lovely (if worn) little wooden box I couldn`t resist.

I see reprints and modern, Mario-themed Nintendo hanafuda cards all the time on Ebay and Yahoo Auctions, but the actual vintage ones are a bit harder to come by (though by no means impossible).

The little red imprint on the upper right of the box says Nintendo （任天堂） using the older style kanji that were in use before the war:

These seem to be post-war cards though, according to the seller they date from the early 1950s.  Open the box up and voila:

A very colorful bunch of cards.  It is a pity that I have no idea how to play:

Anyway, that is that.  I`ll try to make it less than four months before my next post!