What is menko?

Most people will not know what you are talking about when you say Menko. Menko cards were only released in Japan. They were made of thicker card stock and a little smaller in size compared to an American baseball card. They were collected as cards and played as a game. 

The history of Menko spans 250 years, beginning in the middle of the Edo Period (early 1700’s) when Menkos were made of dried mud or clay. The making of paper or cardboard Menkos began in the mid 1890’s. By the 1920’s and 30’s Japan started producing Menkos of religious subjects, comic characters, samurai, animals, baseball and soccer sports stars. The baseball Menkos became very popular in Japan in the 1930's and 40's. Between the years of 1945-1964 were the golden years for Sumo related Menkos. In the 1960’s Japan fell onto economic hard times. Japan now wanted to emerge as a world power and become more technologically advanced. Throughout the 1970’s and early 1980’s not as many Menkos were produced as children were now spending more time watching television and using other electronic devices. 

Menkos were not catalogued or kept track of like sports cards are here in the United States. So, it is unclear at this point how many Menkos of a particular type were made. By 1972 Japan produced a smaller minicard Menko which became popular. They ran from 1972 and finally met their demise in 1985. Menko subject matter became very interesting in the early 1980’s. You now see Menkos of video games, video game characters, Anime, tv characters, cartoon characters, and superheroes. Dealers and collectors seem to agree that the Menkos from the video game era were probably produced in much smaller quantities. This is due to the fact that children are now interested in playing video games instead of playing with Menkos. The new age of home video game entertainment was born. The release of the Famicom in Japan in 1983 and the Nintendo Entertainment System in the US in 1985, in my opinion, was the death of video game related Menkos. Maybe the death of all Menkos period. 

Menko was not just card collecting, but it was also a game (video below). Japanese kids would put a bunch of Menkos on the ground or on a table. Then you would take a Menko in your hand and slam it on the ground or table as hard as you could in hopes you would flip over some of the Menkos. The ones you flipped over, you could keep. The one with the most Menkos at the end was the winner. Of course, there were many variations of how to play Menko, but this was the general idea. For this reason, it is extremely difficult to find certain Menkos in good condition because of how they were played with.

I have been searching for Mario Menkos for years and certain ones are very difficult to find, even in Japan. Let alone in good condition. Not to be discouraged though. There are some good ones out there. It just takes patience and looking in the right place at the right time.  

Happy hunting....