The Mysterious and Lovely Famicom Milk Caps

 

One of the cooler and rarer Famicom things out there to collect are these guys: Famicom milk caps.  

These things are awesome, yet very little seems to be known about them.  They were distributed with bottles of milk for Japanese kids back in the 1980s, you could pry them out of the top of the bottles like this:

They feature characters from well known Famicom games from the mid-1980s.  The artwork on them is quite striking because it is unique and doesn't just mimic the art on the cart labels or anything.  

I don't know which milk company released these, which is the mystery I'm interested in solving.  There are a LOT of milk companies in Japan.  The little text that wraps around the edge of them doesn't provide any clues, it is just nutritional information about the milk.  The big kanji characters on most of them just say "Milk", except for the Takeshi's Castle one which says "Takeshi's Castle".  

In case you need help matching the milk caps in the above photo to the Famicom games they are:

Ninja JaJa Maru Kun

Takeshi's Castle

Binary Land

Ganbare Goemon

Super Chinese

Bomberman

Makai Mura

Super Mario Bros.

This is far from a complete list, I only have a small fraction of the ones out there.  Which brings me to the second part of the mystery: what does a complete set of these look like?  I've seen the odd group of these pop up here and there, but I don't know of anyone who has a complete set of them nor do I know of any checklist that exists.  These things are quite rare - most of them were thrown out decades ago so only a few seem to have survived which makes them difficult to find.  

There are a few up for sale on Yahoo Auctions right now and I can see some for Wild Gunman, Dig Dug and Pac Land which I don't have, as well as some different versions of Super Mario Bros, Makai Mura and Ganbare Goemon which have different pictures from mine.  

If I stick with this long enough, maybe someday I'll be able to track them all down and be the first to create a full checklist of them!

For now though I'm happy to introduce them to the English language Famicom collecting world, another thing to chase like the menko I discussed in my previous post.   Japanese collectors are already aware of these and prices seem to have gone up quite a bit (along with everything Famicom related) recently, they are listed for about 10$ each on Yahoo Auctions right now.  

Famicom Menko are Amazing

 

I picked these up the other day, a big pile of Famicom menko.  They are spectacular.

Menko are cards that Japanese kids use to play a game that mainly involves throwing them at other menko on the ground. It is very similar to pogs, though menko have a much longer history in Japan.

There are a few different kinds of Famicom menko out there which were sold in the 1980s, all of them I think  produced by a company called Amada which made a lot of Famicom related ephemera.  About 3 years ago I wrote a post about snagging some rectangular shaped Famicom Menko. The ones I got this week are round and come from a different set, but likely from the same maker.

I have to say, I like these round ones WAY better than the rectangular ones.   One problem with the rectangular ones is that most of the pictures on them are just screen shots from the games which, while kind of cool, also means some of the cards are pretty dull to look at (not all, but probably like half).

With the circular ones though all the pictures are extremely colorful, eye catching compositions which incorporate the game's box artwork.  Which is AMAZING!  Put them in a pile like the ones I have in the top picture on this post and they just blow you away.  

Another cool thing about these is that they were likely issued fairly early in the Famicom's life (all the games were released in 1985 or earlier so probably in that year) so it features some of the most iconic titles out there - Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. Ice Climber, Balloon Fight and so on.  Most of the games are Nintendo's own releases, but there are also games from Konami (Antarctic Adventure, Yie Ar Kung Fu), Taito (Elevator Action, Chack n Pop), Jaleco (Ninja Kun, Exerion, Formation Z) and Hudson Soft (Nuts & Milk, Star Force, Lode Runner, Raid on Bungling Bay).  

So anyway, if you are looking for some more Famicom hidden treasures out there, I recommend putting the round menko on your list. 

Famicom Galaga CIB Completes my Namcot collection

 

I haven't been posting much recently, mainly due to just being busy.  I did hit a milestone in my Famicom collection that I thought was worth mentioning though.  

7 years ago I did a post detailing my attempt to put together a complete CIB collection of the 18 little Namcot Famicom games. At the time I was just three short of finishing it - Burger Time, Valkrye no Bouken and Galaga.  

I was able to score Burger Time and Valkrye a few years ago, leaving me just missing Galaga to complete the set.  But I got distracted and totally forgot about it for years.  Then the other day my son was playing Galaga (I do have a loose copy of it, its a favorite) and it kind of jogged my memory: "Oh yeah, sitting in a box in a closet somewhere I have all the Namcot games CIB except Galaga.  I should do something about that."

So I got on Yahoo Auctions and looked for CIB copies of Galaga and HOLY CRAP!  I haven't perused Yahoo Auctions for games in over a year and damn, prices have gone through the roof.  I guess this is another one of those weird side effects of the Pandemic, everyone is buying video games so prices have soared.  

Anyway, the best price I could find on a dodgy, beat up CIB copy was about 20$, but I decided to instead go for a nice shiny copy (not new, but close to it), which cost me about 50$.  I think it was worth it, voila:

The collection is complete!

Well, kind of.  My copy of Battle City does not have the manual, and the box is in pretty lousy shape so I might upgrade that one at some point (unfortunately that will be expensive).  Druaga and Super Chinese are also a bit iffy and might also get replaced with nicer copies.  I really wish I had done this 5 years ago when doing so would have probably cost about 1/4 what it will today, but oh well!

Retro Game Advent Calender

 

I had this idea last night that I played around with after the kids had gone to bed.

We have this big advent calendar that my mom made for us after my son was born.  It hangs on the wall in our living room and has little candies in it.  I was absent mindedly staring at it when it occurred to me that most of the pockets would be the right size to hold Famicom carts.  So I took the candies out and put my son's Famicom carts in.

Yup, they fit.

This was just a test run and I have no plans on ever doing anything like this, but I thought this would be a pretty cool thing for a retro gamer to do.  Especially if you are like a retro gaming couple who live together without kids this'd be an awesome way to do advent calendars - playing a game each day throughout December.  

I'm not in that category of person, so this advent calendar was retro-gamified for demonstration purposes only, and currently has reverted to holding just candy.  But I thought I'd put the idea out there in case it hasn't already been floating out on the internet since like 2007 or something and I just didn't notice!

The End is Near: Planning for our first, and last, Retro Game Christmas

 

As I've documented in a few posts this year, 2020 has been the year of the Famicom in my house.   I gave my AV Famicom to my son back in April and we've played it together almost every day since.  I've gradually increased his game library with little presents here and there for good behavior and he has about 30 now.  That only represents less than 5% of my own collection, but its a pretty impressive collection for a 6 year old.

I feel very bad though because I am about to do something terrible to his Famicom interest that I've spent the better part of this year nurturing.

 I'm going to kill it. 

For Christmas this year I'm going to give him a Super Famicom, along with a few games (Super Mario World, Super Mario Collection, Mario Kart, Yoshi's Island and Donkey Kong Country).  

I've been putting off the day I would give him a newer console (albeit one that is itself 30 years old!) for months now because I know that once I do it'll be the only thing he wants to play and the Famicom will fall to the wayside, never again to be the centre of his attention like it is now.

But the writing is on the wall and I've dragged this out about as far as I can.  He is very aware of the fact that newer consoles exist and has been bugging me for months to get one where the images don't look like "Lego" (his way of describing 8 bit graphics). 

 So the Super Famicom, with its 16 bit graphics, is going to be his.  Likely its reign will also be short lived.  He is going to start Elementary School soon and peer pressure there will undoubtedly result in him wanting a Nintendo Switch (or some other contemporary gaming system) by Christmas of 2021.  

So Christmas of 2020 provides the only window of opportunity for me to make retro games a significant highlight of his gifts - and for them to be happily received by him.  A Super Famicom, or any other retro console, is not likely to be well received as a Christmas present a year from now.  So I've got to jump at the chance, even though it sadly means killing off his Famicom interest.

Being a retro gamer dad is complicated work. And I'm not even getting into the minefield of planning his little sister's presents in this post, which is an even bigger issue.

The Super Famicom won't be his only present, he's also getting a boatload of Mario Lego sets and a few other things, all of which are related to the Famicom (because that is what he wants!)  Its a huge difference from Christmas of 2019 which was dominated by dinosaur related presents.  I've felt pretty bad for the past few months as his interest in dinosaurs (which was INTENSE for a couple years there) was completely displaced by his interest in Mario stuff. I miss reading dinosaur books and playing with toy dinosaurs with him. But I've also really enjoyed playing the Famicom with him this year and so feel a little sad that it'll be coming to an end soon.

On the plus side though, I've given him a year of exposure to the Famicom during a very formative period of his life and I think 40 or 50 years from now he'll probably look back on these days with fondness and have an intense nostalgic connection to a little console that is 30 years older than he is!

Famicom Jigsaw Puzzles are Awesome

 

I picked up these on Yahoo Auctions recently: four Famicom jigsaw puzzles!

I already had a couple of Famicom game jigsaw puzzles featuring Star Force and Yie Ar Kung Fu which I picked up a few years ago and look like this:

Those ones were produced by Amada, a company which put out a lot of Famicom related odds and ends back in the 80s.  The ones I got this week on the other hand were put out by a different company called Toyo.  In addition to featuring different games and coming in differently designed boxes the big difference between the two is size.  The Amada ones are small puzzles with only a dozen pieces, while the Toyo ones are bigger and contain 60 pieces each.

As the photo at the top of the post indicated the four I got were Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong Jr, Front Line and Exerion.  These games were put out by three different makers (Nintendo, Taito and Jaleco) whose company logos are on the front.  The Amada ones (at least the ones I have) featured games by Hudson Soft and Konami.  

The back of each box has a checklist of the six different puzzles.  In addition to the four I have they also made Wrecking Crew and Hyper Sports. I'll have to find those at some point so I can complete the set!

The back also tells us that these cost 100 Yen each back in 1985, which was a pretty good deal (I paid way more than that for them in 2020!)

The sides of the boxes say "Pocket Jigsaw Puzzle" in bold lettering:

The top edge of the boxes tell you which game is depicted:

These are pretty awesome.  They are all still sealed in their original bags inside the boxes, I think these are "dead stock" that were store leftovers.  I haven't broken them out to put them together because I bought them more for the box art than the puzzles themselves!

Revelations: Famicom's Sexiest Game Probably isn't Very Sexy

 

I was browsing Yahoo Auctions earlier when I stumbled across an auction for a CIB Famicom Disk System game called Sexy Invaders which I had never heard of.  Actually it seems most of the world has never heard of it either, except for this brief FAQ on Game FAQs there isn't really much out there about it.  

Its kind of weird to see cover art like that on a Famicom game.  It may come as a shock, but this may not even have been licensed by Nintendo (gasp).It came out in 1990 and was released by a company called Super Pig.

Reading through the FAQ it seems that despite the title and provocative cover art, this game has nothing to do with sex.  Its basically just a Space Invaders clone.  I guess for marketing purposes they decided the best way to sell that was to spice up the name.

That doesn't seem to have worked though since I don't think many copies of this game exist, I've never seen it before.  Ironically that makes it one of the harder to find Famicom games out there and thus the focus of a lot of attention among Famicom collectors.  Out of more than 33,000 Famicom items up for auction right now, this one is near the top on Yahoo Auctions "most paid attention to" listing, and is the number one Disk System game.  Its currently got a bid of 3433 Yen with 3 days left, I'm curious how much it will go for.  I'm not a disk system guy, or a sexy guy, so I'll pass, but thought it was kind of interesting nonetheless.  

Postscript: The auction for this ended at 30,501 Yen, about 300$ US!