Rarities: Nintendo in Store Display from the early 1970s

The above is one of the most interesting things in my vintage Nintendo collection.  It is a 1950s store display used to advertise Nintendo playing cards.  The big white characters 任天堂　spell out the company name Nin-ten-do.

Nintendo started out as a playing card maker and as late as the 1950s that was still its main line of business (somebody correct me if I am wrong about that).  They made a variety of cards, including regular playing cards and Japanese style hanafuda cards.  This display advertised both, with their landmark Napoleon cards featured on the top panel.

These things are literally museum pieces, one having been featured prominently in the Nintendo museum event held in Osaka back in 2007.  That is about the only reference to them I could find online.

About 2 years ago one of these popped up on Yahoo Auctions and I joined in the bidding, which ended up going through the roof (I dropped out at about 10,000 yen, it went a bit higher than that but I can`t remember the total).  So when I stumbled across this one a couple weeks ago with a starting bid of 1,000 yen I was the first bidder.  I put in a max bid of 10,000 just to see what would happen.

And guess what?  Well, obviously I won it but the best part was that I ended up being the only bidder this time so I got it for a bargain.  The good thing about bidding on stuff which only shows up in auctions once every 2 years is that unless the auction gets well promoted the people who would bid it up might not even notice it is there, which I think is what happened this time.


The thing that I really love about this is that it makes for a great piece of easy to display interior decoration.  These were designed to be hung from the ceiling as mobiles.  Pardon the mess in the background of this photo, I will be finding a more suitable location to hang this in good time.

 The artwork on them is very vintage and cool looking.  They slowly turn, revealing the other side of each card:

I am really getting into collecting vintage pre-Famicom stuff from Nintendo, partly inspired by Erik`s Before Mario blog, so I`m pretty happy to add this to my still modest collection.

EDIT: I originally thought this was from the 1950s owing to what the seller had been talking about.  As Erik points out in the comments however it actually dates from the early 70s.

The Original Mach Rider

 Despite the Fact that I am desperately trying to make some more living space in our apartment, every once in a while I find something so neat I cannot resist the temptation to splurge.  My most recent purchase: the original 1972 Mach Rider!

As usual, Erik over at Before Mario has beat me to writing a post about Mach Rider by about 3 years and I recommend checking his post out for the full scoop on the toy.  Just to recap the highlights here: It is based on a toy originally released by Hasbro under a different name.  It came in 3 colors (I got the yellow one, but I guess the photo gives that away).  Its basically a racing car that will fly at high speeds off a jump ramp.  It is awesome.

The box mine came in is a bit beat up, but its awesome nonetheless:

 Inside, its got a pretty cool control platform (the dials are stickers, but its got a gear shift that actually shifts):

 I don`t have the batteries or the floor space (or as Erik`s post suggests, a lack of pets) so I haven`t given it a try yet.  I`m satisfied for the moment to just look at it.  Mine came with an interesting bonus goodie, a chirashi (flyer) advertising Nintendo`s mini game series, which was being released at the same time.  Its a pretty neat piece of Nintendo history:

 And best of all, it came with the decals still unapplied.  I`m very tempted to use some of these on my bicycle that I commute to work on, but I won`t.

I`m pretty happy to have this in my collection, its one of the more colorful and neat toys (among many) that Nintendo released in the 60s and 70s which are pretty hard to find today.

Before finishing this post, I have to put a little plug in for a friend of mine over on Famicom World, Dire51 (aka Rob Strangman) who has just put out a book about retro gaming entitled "Memoirs of a Virtual Caveman".  If you are looking for some light retro game reading, give it a look!

I`m a Gambling Man....with my Nintendo Electro Roulette

 

I got a roulette set in the mail last week.  I don`t play much roulette but I like this one.  Its electric and it says Nintendo on the wheel.!

This is one of those light gun games that Nintendo made back in the early 70s.  It is called Electro Roulette, and I do like that name.  Putting the word "electro" before anything makes that thing better. As you can tell from the box cover, in this one you shoot the target (the middle of the roulette wheel) to make it spin.

The gun was sold seperately back in the day so this only includes the wheel.  As luck would have it, I actually own the light gun that goes with it, which I did a little write up about here.  Unfortunately my six shooter doesn`t work and is for display only, so I`m not sure if this roulette wheel is still functioning or not.

I also have another one of the targets, the Electro Safari set, though I kind of like this roulette wheel better.

Anyway, open it up and this is what you get:

A roulette wheel and some chips.  I am guessing that there might have also been a ball originally packed with this, but I am not sure.  Normally a roulette wheel would of course have a ball, but this one mainly functions as a target intended to be hung on a wall vertically, which would have made a ball impossible to use on it. Instead of a ball it seems the number was to be indicated in this little window on the top:

The chips are pretty cool.  They have the old Nintendo logo that the company briefly used in the early 70s (and which looks nothing like `Nintendo`) stamped in the middle of them:

The best part though, as with so many old Nintendo things, is the box itself.  The cowboy on the front is pretty iconic:

And they have a completely different cowboy on the side.  The blue and white star border with an orange brick background really make it look cool too:

Normally when I do a post about one of these pre-Famicom Nintendo finds I reference Erik`s fantastic Before Mario, but I was surprised to find that he hasn`t gotten around to dedicating a post specifically to the Electro Roulette yet (though he does have a post which overviews the Electro series and mentions the Roulette wheel).  This is the first time since I got my Electro Safari that I have been able to introduce an old Nintendo thing which wasn`t already out there, so I feel kind of cool.  Erik`s blog is a bit like the Simpsons for Nintendo collectors, every time you think you`ve found something new, you discover he already has it (and I mean that as a compliment of course)!

Some Game & Watch Goodies

I`ve been collecting Game & Watches for a few years now, but I still don`t have too many.  I really like them though.  I never owned one as a kid, though I did have some generic-brand handhelds which were nowhere near as cool.  

Anyway, this week I acquired four more Game and Watches all in one go through a trade with Whatsupchang over on Famicom World.  I sent him a package of Famicom games and he sent me these beauties:

Gold Cliff, Donkey Kong II, Donkey Kong Jr and Mario Bros!

Actually, Donkey Kong Jr and Mario Bros I already had copies of which I bought at Omocha Souko in Fukuoka a couple of years ago, but Donkey Kong II and Gold Cliff are completely new to me and are really great.  Gold Cliff in particular I had never heard of before but it is kind of a neat game - you control an adventurer and have to get him up to the top of the dual screen to collect some stuff.  Basically the same gameplay as all Game and Watches and I like that.  It also looks pretty good, I like blue stuff!

This is actually my second Famicom-for-Game and Watch trade that I have done on Famicom World.  About a year ago I did a similar trade for the red Micro vs system boxing one, which goes well with my Donkey Kong Hockey here:

There were three of these vs systems made, all I need now is the green Donkey Kong 3 and I will have the whole set!

So my Game and Watch collection is now on the grow again. 

I just love these things!  If anybody else has some Game and Watches they want to trade for Famicom carts, just let me know! 

Yahoo!! A Red Lefty RX!!

After taking my broken old blue Lefty RX on an awesome tour around town last week I decided to do a little online shopping to see if there were any available as I didn`t have a complete, fully functional one.  And I found one!  A red one!  Complete in box!

I entered a bid and long story short it arrived a couple of days later.

It is sooooo smooth.

 The controller is pretty nice too.  One button is all it takes.

 This thing was really complete in box, even with the vintage 1972 batteries still in there.

 It also came with the fuel pit refuelling station:

 And the decals still haven`t been applied.

Far and away the most interesting thing though was this advertising flyer for Nintendo toys from 1972.  This is awesome.

 It is full color on both the front and back and has prety much all the toys that Nintendo was trying to sell back in the early 70s.

 They were selling my Ultra Machine for only 1480 yen back then:

 My Electro Safari SP and SP light gun were also on there:

I`m quite happy with this new acquisition, I now have a blue, gold and red Lefty RX (though only this red one is CIB). 

My New Holy Grail: 1968 Nintendo N&B Block Leisure House

My interest in pre-Famicom vintage Nintendo stuff began a couple of years ago when I found a boxed Electro Safari SP light gun target set from 1970 on a shelf at the now-defunct Omocha Souko.

It was further piqued when Erik V started his absolutely amazing Before Mario blog in which he introduced to the English speaking web his amazing collection of pre-Famicom Nintendo stuff. That blog is cool not just because it allows him to showcase his personal collection, but also because it is pretty much the only comprehensive resource on this rather interesting subject out there. Even in Japanese there isn`t anything comparable.

So over the past couple of years I`ve been slowly picking up little pieces here and there wherever I can find them. Unfortunately most of the stuff is hard to find and expensive when you do.

So I was pretty excited last week when I stumbled upon the above item on Yahoo Auctions: a complete Nintendo N&B Leisure House Block Set!
Back in the 60s Nintendo released its N & B block series, which were very similar to Lego sets. The Leisure House (what a name) was released in 1968 as the instruction manual shows:
It came with a pretty cool full color booklet that included various instructions for making stuff other than the leisure house with the bricks:
This one I got is not only complete, its still sealed:
44 years and still nobody has put this house together. Normally I think nothing of opening sealed stuff but when it is something this old and hard to find....I`m not sure what I will do about that little layer of plastic.

I absolutely love this thing. I was a big Lego fan when I was a kid and even though this is a few years before my time it still reminds me of some of the sets I had as a kid in the early 80s.

These old Nintendo Block sets are pretty hard to find. I have never seen one `in the wild`, even at Mandarake which has a huge selection of vintage toys. Since I bought this one there are now a grand total of zero of them on Yahoo Japan Auctions. Interestingly there is a seller on Ebay who specializes in old Nintendo stuff and is offering the same set here for $399. I did get into a small bidding war on mine and I did pay quite a bit for it, but not that much. I really have no idea how much these things are actually worth, they don`t seem to come up often enough to get a good feel for what they usually go for.

Anyway, I now have yet another `holy grail` for my collection that, unfortunately, I have no adequate way of displaying properly. Someday we are getting ourselves a bigger place if for no other reason than to store all this stuff:)

Nintendo in the 60s, Man, the 60s! Ultra Machine!

As I have stated on here numerous times, I like to go to a store called Omocha Souko on a regular basis in order to hunt for retro video games. I go so frequently that I now have an awkward time answering the question "what is your hobby?" If I were to answer honestly I would say "I go to a store called Omocha Souko 3 or 4 times a week to look through their junk bins for old video game stuff that I collect and then write about on my blog. That is my hobby."

As this answer provides too much detail on too obscure an area of interest, I usually just say "hiking" instead.

At any rate, what I don't write about too much on here is the fact that Omocha Souko is not just a video game store, it is also a big used-stuff store. The name "Omocha Souko" actually means "toy warehouse" in Japanese. About half of the first floor is, in fact, taken up by toys.
Usually I bypass this area and head straight to the second floor for the video games, but on occasion I will browse the toy section before heading up there. Yesterday I did just that and it was a good thing I did, for on one shelf they had just put this baby out:
The Nintendo Ultra Machine!!!

This thing is so awesome I don't know where to begin. Until about a year ago information on old Nintendo toys like this was hard to come by, but now thanks to Erik's excellent Before Mario blog the entire world now has a wonderful archive of information about these things which I will now blatantly rip off by quoting a few facts that he put up there.

Released in 1967 this toy was designed by none other than the late Gunpei Yokoi, perhaps better known to video game history as the creator of the Game and Watch and Game Boys!

OK, enough of the ripping off (but do check out Before Mario if you haven't already, its really a great blog). Lets look at what I got.

Opening up the box the first thing we have is:
A totally awesome Ultra Machine flyer! The reverse of this has the instructions on how to set up the machine. Note in the lower left corner there is an ad for replacement balls (100 yen per box). This is actually quite cool though and probably worth what I paid for the thing (2000 yen) itself. I might frame it someday as a piece of pop art.

Under that we have:
YES! Everything is complete!! Even the balls are all still there!

This made me quite excited as about a year ago I actually purchased another later version of this same toy that was released in the late 1970s:
The Ultra Machine DX. It is very similar to the original Ultra Machine, but as you can see from this photo the box on it was almost destroyed. It was also missing the balls and had a crack on the blue plastic part. It was only 800 yen though so I was quite satisfied with it at the time.

My new Ultra Machine though is not only complete but in pristine condition.
I love that blue Nintendo bat:
The bat that came with the later Ultra Machine DX is gray, nowhere near as sexy.

The box is pretty cool too:
Anyway, I just love this thing. It was quite the bargain too for only 2000 yen. An Ebay search just turned up one with a BIN price of 300$. That is on the high side, but still, what a bargain.


More of my Old-School Nintendo Finds from the 60s and 70s:
-Mandarake Finds: Kousenjuu SP Gun and Old School Star Wars Stuff
-Flea Market Finds: Nintendo Batting Practice with Koichi Tabuchi and Sadaharu Oh
-Nintendo Color TV Game 15
-Mega Bargain of the Day: Kousenjuu SP Electro Safari

Mandarake Finds: Kousenjuu SP Gun and Old Japanese Star Wars Stuff

I had a nice stop in at Mandarake this afternoon, replete with purchases. Nothing makes for a nicer day than finding a few bargains. The best part was the Kousenjuu SP Light Gun, complete in its original box!
This is a light gun made by Nintendo in 1970 as the package shows:
About a year ago I found a Kousenjuu SP Electro Safari , which is basically a big target for these light guns:
You just aim the gun at the little light detector on the leopard and if you hit it, the leopard spins around. I never had a gun to test it out with though so I was psyched to find this.

Actually, I still don`t have one. This one doesn`t work, which is kind of too bad. On the other hand though I got it quite cheap and really just wanted it to look at rather than to use so I think it was a cool purchase.

Open the box up and here you go:
It even came with some pretty ancient looking Toshiba batteries.

Anyway, I love the box art:
And check out the pearl handles, John Wayne style:
It is actually quite similar to the original Famicom Light Gun:Not quite the same though, they definetely used different molds for them.

I picked up a couple of other cool, albeit non-gaming related, things while there. First, this thing, which is awesome:
A partial set of Japanese 1977 Yamakatsu / Topps Star Wars cards. I LOVE original old school Star Wars stuff like this, and I especially love finding Japanese old school Star Wars stuff. This is a little booklet and inside are a bunch of envelopes, each containing one card. A couple have been removed but most are still in there. You can`t see what cards are in the envelopes so I`m not sure which ones I got. These things are insanely rare to find still unopened like this so I`m going to keep it as is for the time being.
I also picked up a copy of the Japanese version of Starlog from 1983. The Return of the Jedi preview issue, complete with a back cover poster ad for the upcoming release:
All in all a great day. Check out Erik`s post here on Before Mario for a bit more info on this old Nintendo light gun. His is in a bit better condition than mine and probably works too!

Related Posts:
- Flea Market Finds: Nintendo Batting Practice with Koichi Tabuchi and Sadaharu Oh
- Nintendo Color TV Game 15
- Mega Bargain of the Day Kousenjuu SP Electro Safari