Thursday, July 5, 2018

Famicom Menko are so Cool!



 Menko are cool.  They are cards made on thick cardboard and designed to be thrown at the ground.  You win the game if you can use one menko card to flip over another one.  They were extremely popular during the post war period, though by the 1980s their popularity had declined quite a bit from its peak as kids had a lot more toy options available.

Despite this, there were also some Famicom menko released during that decade and they are awesome.  I already had a few that I bought four years ago but last week I bought a decent pile of them off of Yahoo Auctions to add to my collection.

They feature images of games from the first few years of the Famicom's lifetime - Wrecking Crew, Front Line, Super Mario Bros., Front Line, Combat and Lode Runner being among the games featured.
 The backs of the cards feature another game kids could play - baseball.  You would flip one card over and it would tell you what you got (hit, stolen base, double play, strikeout, etc).

They are really thick:
 This is my new stack in all its glory:
I'm not sure how many of these were made but I hope to put together a complete set someday!

6 comments:

  1. Very cool. My goal is to catalog all the Famicon cards someday....I'll have to use you as a resource since it appears you have a good chunk. I have most of the Famicon mini card set catalogued. It is huge and issued in 6 series.

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    1. Cool! I have a few doubles of these Famicom menko if you want to trade!

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  2. So basically Pogs were a rip-off of these? Pretty cool! I love the artwork on them.

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  3. Wow, isn't it amazing how well these things've survived? I mean, they're just cardboard...

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    1. Yeah, they are in pretty decent shape too!

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