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At the end of the occupation the plethora of Japanese
baseball cards ended. For an unknown reason, baseball
menko’s popularity diminished resulting in few issues from
1953 to 1955. Bromide production continued, although the
number of sets also declined. This era did include two
bromide sets honoring the 1953 Major League tours of Japan.
Among the depicted Major Leaguers are Mickey Mantle, Yogi
Berra, and Eddie Mathews. From 1953-55, the most common
cards are game sets issued as inserts by Yakyu Shonen and
Omoshiro magazines.
Bromides
and Game Cards
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Yogi Berra
1953 Marusan Bromide |
Prize Sheet
1953 Marusan Bromide |
1960 Doyusha 4in1 bromide sheet |
Takehiko Bessho
ca. 1953 bromide |
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Katsumi Kojima
1952/3 Yakyu Shonen |
Wally Yonamine
1954/5 Yakyu Shonen |
Wally Yonamine
ca. 1957 Yakyo Shonen
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Wally Yonamine
1956 JK14 Karuta |
Candy
(mostly gum and caramel) cards also became popular in the
mid-1950s. Often printed on thin paper and distributed
regionally, few of these cards survive making it difficult
to recreate checklists for these sets. As a result, no
candy set from the 1950s has been fully cataloged. Based on
surviving examples, Kobai Caramels seems to have been one of
the largest producers of candy cards. Asayama Fusan Gum,
Seiko Gum, LiLi Gum, and Cisco Carmels also produced
baseball sets during the early 1950s.
In 1959 and 1960 Jintan printed cards on very thick stock
that contained the starting nine players from each team.
The most popular gum cards are probably
the 1964 Morinaga cards. This postcard-size issue comes in
two styles: Standups (which can be folded to standup in the
same manner as 1964 Topps Standups) and Top Stars (non-standups).
Both have vivid color pictures on the fronts and information
about the player on the backs. The standups set contains 14
cards while the Top Star contains 11 but some cards are
quite rare with only a handful of known examples.
Candy and Gum Cards
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Kazuhiro Yamauchi
ca.1959 Ace Gum |
Sadaharu Oh
1964 plastic jintan |
Wally Yonamine
1953 Kobai Caramel |
Yuko Minamimura
1953 Kobai Caramel |
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Sadaharu Oh
1960 Maruto Gum |
Masaichi Kaneda
1958 Fujiya Caramel |
Oh
and Nagashima
1959 Meiji Caramel |
Shigeo Nagashima
1960 LiLi Gum |
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Wally Yonamine
1962 Tachibana Seika |
Tatsuo Okitsu
1960 Jintan Gum |
Sadaharu Oh
1964 Fujiya Gum |
Katsuya Morinaga
1964 Morinaga Standup |
In 1956 a new type of menko emerged. Often called
“Tobacco-sized Menko” by American collectors, these cards
are rectangular menko measuring 1 13/16 by 3 inches with
player photos on the front. This style dominated the
Japanese card industry from 1957 to 1964 when they abruptly
stopped.
These cards were usually packaged in envelopes made of
newspaper (one card per pack) and these envelopes would be
strung together by running a string through a hole punched
through the top of the envelope. These bundles are known as
taba. Purchasers would pull a pack off the taba. About a
half dozen cards in each taba would be stamped with the
number 1, 2, or 3 on the back. These are known as prize
cards. The drawer of a prize card could choose an item off
a poster-sized display sheet. Third prize was usually a
pair of cards, second prize an uncut group of four cards,
and first prize an uncut sheet of 12 or 16 cards. These
prizes were often cut into individual cards by children so
hand-cut cards with uneven boarders are common.
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1962 Doyusha menko taba |
1961 Marusho Menko prize display sheet |
Research is ongoing but so far nine major menko
manufacturers have been identified: Doyusha, Yamakatsu,
Marukami, Marumatsu, Marusan, Marusho, Maruta, Maruo and
Maruya (“maru” means round or circle in Japanese -the
original shape of menko). To date, 65 “Tobacco-sized Menko”
sets have been cataloged and at least a dozen more sets are
known to exist. Most of these sets contain approximately 40
cards, although a few sets, such as the 70-plus card 1957
Yamakatsu set, are much larger. Since most sets contain a
small number of cards, stars are emphasized and many bench
players have no cards.
In the mid to late 1960s, several American servicemen
imported a number of these sets in quantity. These cards
can still be found at major card shows - often in the
oddball boxes. The most sought after “Tobacco-sized Menko”
are any of the 40 different 1959 Sadaharu Oh rookie cards,
and hard-to-find Americans such as Larry Doby and Don
Newcombe.
Tobacco-sized Menko
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1949 Marusho
2nd Prize sheet of 4 |
Oh
and Nagashima
1959 Yamakatsu |
Isao Harimoto
1959 Doyusha |
Jackie Robinson error
1958 Doyusha |
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1963 Marukami
uncut prize sheet |
Shigeo Nagashima
1958 Doyusha |
Andy Miyamoto
1958 Doyusha |
Wally Yonamine
1958 Marumatsu |
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