Have I Completed This Menko Set? I'm Still Not Sure.

Back in 2020, I came across a menko lot for sale on ebay. Despite the large quantity (I certainly didn't need such a stack), nostalgia took over, and I made the purchase.

 

The set wasn't listed on TCDB, so I got in touch with SumoMenkoMan, and we created a checklist. The one problem? We weren't exactly sure that a few of the cards on our checklist existed, because we'd never seen them in the wild.

 

Still, it was a good feeling to contribute to the database, and I kept my eyes peeled for the cards in question. And because I had about 80% of the cards known to exist, I also kept my eyes peeled for the few that I still needed. 

 

Fast-forward a few years, and I finally added a couple more cards.

Here's an image that shows some of the cards, just to give you a reminder of the impressive the artwork and colors you'll find across the set. 

 

 

  

That's right, it's the Transformers!

 

And I'm posting about them again because I have exciting news:

 

A seller that I follow on ebay occasionally lists a batch of cards from this set in his store. Whenever he does, I scan over the images to see if there are any that I don't have. Usually I end up saying, "have it, have it, have it, have it." But when he posted a batch a couple of months ago, not only did I see one that I didn't have . . .

 

. . . it was also one of the unconfirmed cards! 

 

I messaged him, asking if he'd consider taking that one card out of the listing to sell it to me separately. He politely declined, but mentioned that if he came across another copy, he'd let me know. 

 

Well, a few weeks later, I heard back from him. And guess what? He found another copy.

 

And guess what else? 

 

 

Autobot Jazz, card front and back

 

That copy is now in my collection!

 

Jazz was one of the key "Generation 1" Autobots, playing right-hand man to Optimus Prime. He also transformed into a pretty cool Porsche, which makes this menko even more appealing. I'm very happy to be able to confirm his card exists—so happy that I spent a little more than I wanted to on it. (I still have some duplicates from that original lot that I purchased back in 2020, so maybe I'll sell a couple of them to counter the cost.) 

 

Here's a short video that features Jazz doing an Autobot roll call.

 

 

   

And with his menko in hand, I now possess all 42 known cards in this set, which feels like a pretty cool feather in the cap. Here are the six "unconfirmed" Transformers that are currently on the checklist, along with some information about them:

 

 

Blitzwing

There are three main Decepticon jet fighters from Generation 1: Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker. They all have a card in this menko set. Blitzwing, however, came a bit later on, and he's actually a triple changer (jet, tank, robot). Because of that, I'm rethinking whether he would have been part of the set.  

 

Brawn

He'd almost certainly be included. One of the original Autobots who crash-landed on Earth, Brawn is a military-style Land Rover with demolition skills and a tough attitude (e.g., "Hey, come back! You didn't finish your nickel-plated knuckle sandwich!")

 

Huffer

Same goes for this guy. Huffer is an orange truck cab who was part of that original Autobot crew. He was a bit of a complainer from the start. Case in point? The first thing he said in the original Transformers story line was, "Oh, I say we leave right now and forget about traipsing after the stupid Decepticons."

 

Ironhide

Ironhide was a boxy red minivan, and was also part of the original Autobot crew to crash-land on Earth. 

 

Ratchet

Chief Medical Officer of the Autobots, and part of the original story line. Seems like he should have a card in this set, as well.

  

Shockwave

Shockwave was the Military Commander of the Decepticons, but similar to Blitzwing above, he didn't appear until a little bit later in the series. However, I still think he might have a card in this set. He even makes a little cameo near the bottom left side of Perceptor's card.

 

 

And that's that. As far as I know, the Takara company did not provide an official checklist for this set when it was released back in 1985, but I'll keep doing research and looking out for examples. I don't think I've ever put this kind of continued effort into completing a set of cards, but it's been kind of fun.

 

And that leads me to a question for you readers: 

 

Have you ever collected a set of cards that was so obscure that you felt like you were alone in your quest to complete it—or even to find more information about it? If so, share in the comment section!

 

Thanks for reading, as always. 

Another Two Transformers Cards Meet My Eye

A few years ago I came across a stack of menko for sale on eBay, all featuring characters from the Transformers animated series of the 1980s. It was a sizeable stack, and there were some duplicates as well. I was pretty new to menko at that point, and wasn't sure I needed such a big lot of them, so I went back and forth for a while on whether I should make the purchase. Thankfully, nostalgia won out, and I gave myself the green light. Here are just some of the cards:

 

 

 

The fantastic artwork and vivid colors were too good to pass up. 

 

After I received the cards and finished sorting through them, I contacted SumoMenkoMan, who had a bunch of cards from this very same set. Together we came up with a checklist and submitted it to TCDB. It was the first time I'd contributed to the database in this way, and it felt pretty good.

 

And you know what? That one lot of cards I purchased had gotten me fairly close to having the full set—about 75%, in fact. As time went on, I became more and more thankful that I made the purchase. The cards would rarely show up on auction sites, and when they did, it was even more rare that the cards being offered were ones I needed for my collection. A couple of years ago, I was able to pick up three more cards. And then there was a whole lot of nothing for a while.

Recently, however, that changed.

A seller on eBay listed a dozen cards from the set. I eagerly scanned the images in the listing, hoping there'd be at least one that I needed.

There were two.

 

Quickly I emailed the seller, asking if he'd be willing to sell me those two menko separately. To my great pleasure, he told me that he had a few extra copies of those two cards, and he'd be happy to list them separately, as long as we could agree on a price.

Well, these menko have been going for super-high prices lately, and I wasn't too excited about his first offer. I suggested a trade for some of my duplicates, but he wasn't interested. Eventually, we agreed on a fair price, and I was happy to seal the deal. (I also ended up listing and selling a few of my duplicates on eBay, which definitely lessened the blow.)

Within a week or so, the package arrived. Here are the two new guys, on full display.

 

Smokescreen and Thundercracker card fronts

 

   

Smokescreen and Thundercracker card backs

Smokescreen is an Autobot. Thundercracker is a Decepticon. I'm surprised they made it all the way to my mailbox without blasting each other apart. But it's a good thing they did.

Their safe arrival means I've now got 41 of the 48 menko in the set. And here's what makes it really interesting:

I'm not completely sure the other 7 menko even exist!

 

When SumoMenkoMan and I were compiling the checklist, we took an educated guess on some of the well-known Generation 1 characters that would almost have to be included in the set, but whose cards we'd never seen ourselves—not even in pictures on the internet.

 

So, although it's likely I haven't completed this set, I do currently have all the known cards in the set.

 

It's a pretty fun accomplishment for an '80s kid like me, who grew up with that original cartoon, and who still gets hit with a big dose of nostalgia whenever he hears that theme song.

How about you readers? What TV shows or films bring back the nostalgia enough to make you want to collect some of the related cards or stickers? (The A-Team, Magnum P.I., Three's Company, Indiana Jones, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.)

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

Samurai Jack Custom Menko: PRINTED

 

Fun announcement:

 

 

 

I've printed out the Samurai Jack menko design!

 

It took a little bit of experimentation with dimensions, card stock thickness, and assembly, but I'm pretty happy with the way the final versions turned out. Here's the back:

They've got a heft and feel similar to menko of the mid-20th century. To make them even more period correct, I decided to give the edges of each card a slight "aged" look. The red NP stamp on the back is also a nice little nod to the way menko were sometimes stamped in the golden days.

 

As for size, these cards are based on a vintage menko that measured 1 3/8" wide by 2 7/8" tall. Seems like that's pretty standard, but it does push the height of an Ultra-Pro or BCW tobacco sleeve just a tiny bit. (The top edge of the menko will come right up to the top edge of the sleeve.)

Ryan from Japanese Sumo Wrestling Cards and Menko, since you so kindly helped me verify the Japanese characters on the front and back of this menko while I was first creating the design, I'm going to send a copy to you as a way of showing my appreciation.

I'm also going to mail out a copy to the first three readers to leave a comment describing their favorite episode or favorite character from the Samurai Jack series.

 

If you're one of the claimants and I don't already have your mailing address from a previous giveaway, here's how to reach me:

 

My email address is available on my blogger profile page. 

You can also message me on TCDB.

 

Because I've only printed out a small amount so far, the rest will be split between my bonanza store and my eBay store. The price is set slightly higher than the other custom cards due to the time of assembly and cost of materials involved.

 

Stay tuned for more, and thanks very much for reading!

This Custom Card has Gotta Get Back, Back to the Past. . .

I enjoy good animation. And a good story. And creativity.  

 

Not surprising, then, that I was intrigued by the Samurai Jack series when it hit Cartoon Network in the early 2000s. Admittedly, sometimes I thought it was weird; other times cheesy. And there were episodes I wasn't exactly enthralled with. But there were special times when the whole production team would just nail an episode. The combination of animation, backgrounds, audio, story line, and creativity hit the highest mark. The following clip provides an example.

 

And so I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that when I discovered menko a couple of years ago, they also intrigued me. The artwork and colors on many menko from the old days are just fantastic. So much so, that when I recently came across a book called Sayonara Home Run—which told the story of baseball and menko in Japan—I snatched it up and read it, cover to cover. 

During that reading, I came across a particular Japanese baseball player whose profile reminded me of Samurai Jack.  

 

1948 Hiroshi Oshita

 

Soon a formula worked itself out in my mind. 

 

Menko + Samurai Jack = Custom Card. 

So I got to work. Here's how it turned out. (Front and back shown.)

 

 

 

Design elements on the card front: The Japanese kanji character at top left is for "samurai". The phonetic "Jakku" ties the card to phonetic spellings used on baseball menko of the late-1940s, and indicates how a Japanese speaker might pronounce the American name "Jack" using the syllable sounds of the Japanese language. A famous example from the era is a Babe Ruth menko that spells his name "Bebu Lusu" on the front. 

 

As for the card back, the image of Jack is from an episode that was set in outer space (season 01, episode 05). The number 0105 on top is a little reference to that. On the bottom, the Japanese katakana characters spell out the word "spaceman" (su pe - su man).

 

PS: Ryan at Japanese Sumo Wrestling Cards and Menko, thank you for verifying the kanji and katakana characters for me. I'm going to send a copy your way.

 

Thanks for reading!

More [Menko] than Meets the Eye

About a year ago I discovered the coolness of vintage Japanese baseball cards, also known as menko. Soon after, I added the first few to my collection. But since then I haven't added any more. In fact, I've hardly purchased trading cards of any kind.

Well, that changed recently when I had the opportunity to pick up a sizeable stack of menko. Not baseball menko, mind you, but something that'll be nostalgic for most 1980s kids like me:

Transformers!

There were 36 unique menko in the package: 16 Autobots, 2 combination cards, and 18 Decepticons. Quite a few duplicates as well.

I have to admit that for a little while I had buyer's remorse. Why did I need so many of them? I would have been more than happy with just a few, for a little nostalgia.

The other side of the coin, however, is that I don't think I've ever seen these menko come up on auction sites before. And I've already found one blogger who can use some of the duplicates (they're in the mail, SumoMenkoMan).

So enough with the rationalizing already. For many of you collectors out there, buying a few dozen cards is probably known as "a weekday". Let's get to the cards.

First, the Autobots.

Couldn't start with anyone other than Optimus Prime, autobot leader (Semi Truck). The grid lines in the background alone indicate that this card is from the 1980s. (1985, to be exact.)

A nice group of Autobot vehicles came with the stack. From left to right: Bumblebee (Volkswagen Beetle), Hound (Military Jeep), Wheeljack (Race Car), and Prowl (Police Car).

Next we've got Red Alert (Lamborghini), Trailbreaker (Camper Truck), Inferno (Fire Truck), and Sideswipe (Lamborghini). The colors on all of these menko are still impressively vibrant.

Also included were all five Dinobots: Grimlock (T-Rex), Slag (Triceratops), Sludge (Brontosaurus), Swoop (Pterodactyl), and Snarl (Stegosaurus). Kids love dinosaurs, kids love Transformers. Good marketing decision by someone at Takara/Hasbro there.

Here are Blaster (Cassette Player) and Perceptor (Microscope).

And two combo cards (Optimus Prime/Scrapper, Megatron/Perceptor).


Each card measures approximately 1.75 inches wide by 3 inches tall. They're pretty thick, too—I'd say almost three times as thick as a standard 1980s baseball card. 

Here are a couple of card backs, one Autobot and one Decepticon. On the bottom you'll see that kids could have used these cards for a rock-paper-scissors game, as well as a game that simulated some sort of dice throw.

Now let's get to the Decepticons.

Two of the fighter jets were included (Starscream on the left, Skywarp on the right). As far as names of evil robot fighter jets are concerned, I don't think you can get much better than Starscream and Skywarp.

Impressively, the stack of cards also included the complete Construction group. From left to right, we have: Hook (Crane), Long Haul (Dump Truck), Bonecrusher (Bulldozer), Mixmaster (Cement Mixer), Scrapper (Front-End Loader), and Scavenger (Power Shovel).

And when all six of those neon-green machines assembled together, they created this guy, named Devastator. Seems like it would be tricky for a robot to maneuver with a front-end loader as one foot and a cement mixer as the other, but by gosh Devastator did it.

Here are all three Insecticons. From left to right: Shrapnel (Stag Beetle), Kickback (Grasshopper), and Bombshell (Boll Weavil).

Next we've got Frenzy and Rumble (Audio Cassettes). I always liked these guys, because in the original cartoon they spoke with a slight "tough guy from Brooklyn" accent. Just watch and listen to this short clip, as Rumble gets fooled by some Autobots.

"I must have static in my rectifiers", he says. 

Here are another two audio cassettes, Laserbeak and Ravage. I think Ravage may have been the first Transformer I owned way back then. My dad bought it for me one night from a vendor on a Manhattan sidewalk as we were walking back to the apartment. 

And why are there so many audio cassettes, you ask?

This guy! Soundwave, the cassette player and recorder. He'd send the cassettes out to gather intelligence. Then they'd return, transform into their cassette mode, and Soundwave would play back the information they gathered.

Finally, there's Reflector, with a cameo on the lower left by Shockwave. I didn't know much about Reflector, but in my research I discovered that three smaller Decepticons (Spectro, Spyglass, and Viewfinder) would join together to create him. He's a camera in his other form.


These menko will always provide a great little trip down memory lane for me, and I can imagine they've done the same for a few of you folks who grew up around the same time. 

Did you have a favorite Transformer back then? Own any of the toys? Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading, as always.

Guardian Angel of the Long Ball

Our blogger friend Sean, who's getting back into baseball cards in Japan, showed us a few cards from the 1975 "Rocket Robots" menko set last month. If you happened to read that post, I'm wondering what sort of reaction you had when you saw this card of Sadaharu Oh.

Sean referred to it as "striking", which fits the bill perfectly.  

It's the background that really does it for me. Those energetic white dots and streaks seem to be an abstract, artistic way of representing rays of the yellow sun behind him. Or maybe that sun is meant to symbolize something else, as Sean suggested:

The background artwork makes it look like he has a halo. Saint Oh, guardian angel of the long ball. . . 

Well, after reading that line, inspiration struck, and it struck to the point that I put aside some of the other design projects I was working on and set right out to create a more saintly, stained glass version of the card. Here it is.

The idea for a stained glass baseball card isn't new. They've appeared in sets as far back as 1996, from what I can tell. But the notion is still excellent. After all, for some fans, baseball is a religion.

And if those folks were to enter their places of baseball worship, you can imagine they'd feel a sense of comfort and strength as they gazed up toward Sadaharu Oh, guardian angel of the long ball. Or perhaps they'd refer to him as the patron saint of the long ball.

Just look. There he is, with baseball's version of a sword held at the ready. His eyes describe a studious, wary focus—evidence that he understands the weightiness of his position. And who better to uphold that position than the career home run leader in Nippon Professional Baseball history? (He retired in 1980 with 868 home runs, and still holds the lead by more than 200.)

Additionally, he remained with the same team—the Yomiuri Giants—for his entire playing career. Loyalty. Another saintly quality. With Sadaharu Oh, inspiration abounds.  

Thank you for providing some for me, Sean. 

And thanks for reading, everyone.

Long Before Pogs

What's the most interesting addition I've made to my vintage card collection this year?

Menko!

(Fronts and backs are pictured together throughout this post.)
 

I still have a lot to learn about menko, which are often smaller than standard North American cards and thicker, too. But for me, one of the best parts of collecting anything is doing the research and learning about your collection, so I really look forward to digging deeper into the history of these Japanese beauties.

I've picked up eight menko over the past year or so, all baseball themed. As many of you collectors likely know, the subjects go well beyond baseball players. Images of automobiles, movie stars, robots, monsters, samurai, sumo, and more can be found. Most of the menko here date from the 1950s and 1960s, I think.

I'm enjoying the various images and illustrations. (Check out the classy spectacles and pose on that Chunichi Dragons pitcher above.) The designs on the back can vary greatly, but I do enjoy the cartoon-ish ones.

I also like the fact that menko were designed as a game for kids. From what I've gathered so far, a player puts one of their menko on the floor, face up, and the other player takes one of their menko and flings it down, trying to flip the first menko over on its back.

If that reminds you of the Pogs craze of the mid-1990s, you're not alone. If the idea of deliberately banging up your cards makes you cringe, you're also not alone. But menko were meant to be played with, and I think that's a good way to view them when it comes to condition.

For another interesting aspect of menko, look closely at some of the card backs. You'll see what appears to be a rock-paper-scissors type of game, with a small illustrated hand taking on the shape of a rock or a scissor (I don't have any examples of paper yet). I wonder if this was used for a trading game, where you'd each flip down a card, back side up, and see whose card had the winning object. Man, that'd be a tough way to lose a card.

I also wonder how many kids back then tucked some of their menko away, not wanting to ding them up or lose them in a game. I'm sure a lot of kids had at least a couple of special ones. 

And now I do, too.

Thanks for reading, as always.