New Set: 1930 One-Color Disks - C301

Discovering new menko sets is always a thrill.  Discovering new C-Series/Round menko sets is awesome and on a whole new level.  It is what keeps me going in the sumo card hobby.  I came across this set recently and knew it was extremely unique when I got it in hand.  Why?  First, it was printed in 1930 during a time when only a few cards/postcards were being printed of rikishi so it captures some obscure wrestlers.  Second, C-series menko were not popular so only a few of these types of sets were printed and even fewer survive today.  And lastly, this is the only C-series set that actually uses real photos of wrestlers instead of drawings.  This set is constructed by printing the images on paper, gluing that paper to thin cardboard, and then die cutting the menko out.  On some of my menko the paper and cardboard are separating as the 90-year old glue is starting to lose its grip.
You can see the glue separation as well as the layout of the menko on this miscut example:

As an added bonus, this set's checklist is the largest of the type coming in at 14 cards.  Each menko measures approximately 1.75"/4.5cm in diameter.

Here are the four colors shown with the Gyoji card - Grey, Purple, Pink, Blue:

Here are the three Yokozuna in the set.  The rather lackluster Yokozuna Minanogawa (shown here as Komusubi Asashio), the equally lackluster Yokozuna Miyagiyama, and the great Tamanishiki (shown here as a Sekiwake)!

Fantasy Sumo Wrestling Card Game - First Edition!

Hakkeyoi!  I've had this custom Fantasy Sumo Wrestling Card Game project in mind for quite a while now and was finally able to put some work into it last month to make it happen.  I pitched it over at our Facebook Group, BBM Sumo Card Collectors, and was able to get 7 other players.  So 8 of us are playing the first-ever Fantasy Sumo Wrestling Card Game for the Hatsu 2019 (January 2019) tournament.  In a nutshell, here is how it works:

1. I build a custom 54-wrestler deck of cards (see images above for front and back of card #05)  and have it printed at a store specializing in custom playing cards.  Printing, shipping, and delivery takes about 3 weeks.
2. Once I get the deck, I randomly divide the deck up across all the players using Random.org.  In this case, each player got 6 cards with 6 left over.  These left over cards are used as substitutes in case a wrestler withdraws before the tournaments starts.
3. I ship each players' cards to them before the tournament starts.
4. Upon receipt of the cards, each player discovers the different ways they can earn points during the tournament for their wrestlers printed on the backs of the cards.  See picture above.  With card #05 there are 5 different ways to earn points.
5. At the end of the tournament, each player adds up the total number of points from all their wrestlers and the winner is the one with the most points.
6. The winner receives a full deck of the cards from me as a prize.
7. This deck of cards is retired and we repeat for the next tournament.

Best of all, it's free!  My main goal is to try and connect the sumo card community a little more in a fun way during tournaments and overall it's fairly low cost.  The only "catch" is these cards cannot be sold.  They can only be traded or given to other players.

Things I've learned about making a custom card set:

1. I am not a graphic artist by any means, but figure the aesthetics of the cards will grow over time.
2. I clearly don't understand the entire printing process as you can see I've pixilated the grey background of the card during my editing/saving time.  They went to the printer looking just fine, but came out printed like this.  I'm working to fix this for the next round of cards.
3. I did not want to get bogged down with making this set perfect.  I'd rather get them in hand and figure out how to improve them for next time.  Font size and balance come to mind after I see what the final product looks like.
4. Feedback from the other players will be critical for the next tournament.  What new ways to earn points would be fun, what didn't they like, what did they like, any special cards I should print, etc...?

Interested in playing?  Be on the lookout for the March tournament announcement sometime toward the end of February.

2019 Collecting Goals

2018 was a great year for my collection and meeting my collecting goals.  In 2017, I "scored" a B and in 2018, I "scored" an A-.  2019 will be an ambitious year as we have an impending move from Germany to California which will put a pause on my hobby for a good month or two.  Hopefully, I can be proactive and get some posts created beforehand to have ready to go during the move.  This year will also be one of my most ambitious in the hobby as I set out to complete two more goals than last year for a total of 12 goals this year.  I did "complete" all 10 of my goals last year, although some a little better than others.

 

Here are the 12 goals I am setting for myself this year in priority order:

1. Finish Editing and Print the 5th Edition of my Sumo Menko & Card Checklist Book
- The pride and joy to my sumo menko and sumo card hobby has been publishing new editions to the Sumo Menko & Card Checklist Book.  I have enough new content to drastically expand my book (it's currently at 349 pages) and I should be ready to publish the 5th Edition next fall.  The black and white bromide section as well as the playing card section are getting huge makeovers and there are tons of new sets and expansions to current sets that are waiting to get published.  My time on Earth is finite so I want to leave my mark with this book.

2. Update this Blog's Content and Publish 75 posts
- This blog has always been an outlet to organize my thoughts, organize my collection, and to meet fellow collectors.  Regular readers know my content can vary from week to week, but it always centers around my passion for sumo menko and cards.  When I first built this blog, I threw in a bunch of content and frankly haven't touched it since.  That will change this year as I will freshen up links and content to make it a little more useful with a little extra eye appeal.  I am also going to have consistent posting times with the two-week rotation of Week 1: Mon & Thu, Week 2: Wed, Week 3: Mon & Thu, Week 4: Wed. etc....  This should allow me to develop stronger posts and put me at around 75-80 posts for the year.




3. Add 5 New Cards to my 1973 Calbee Set
- Here we go!  I need to get a move on with this 1973 Calbee set and it is time to actively seek out the cards.  Getting 5 cards is not the problem....getting 5 cards that fit within my hobby budget is.  With some effort, though, I should be able to make a decent dent in this set.

4. Expand the Checklists for Sumo Wrestling Telephone Cards
- If you lived in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s, you know how huge the telephone card craze was.  It was on par with POGs across the United States, but lasted a lot longer and these cards inherently had value (most of them still do) as they could be used to make phone calls on Japanese pay phones.  But, aghast, the pay phone would punch a small hole in your card at the end of your call indicating how many credits you had left which also drastically killed the collecting value of your card.  Consequently, printing these cards was like printing free money for the telephone company since a lot of them went unused.  By sheer coincidence, sumo wrestling was going through a huge boom at this time and so there are hundreds of these sumo wrestling telephone cards that have yet to be fully appreciated or catalogued.  I'm ready to dive into this genre of sumo cards and get it published in my book.

5. Expand the Event-Signed BBM Sumo Card Checklist
- BBM as a sports-card company is full of mystery and I still don't know why they choose to use sticker autographs for their main sumo wrestling sets.  Yet when they host special events around Japan to promote new card products, they give away prizes which consists of on-card autograph cards.  They have wrestlers sign a few of them with gold ink and then they emboss the card with the BBM Authentic Seal.  These on-card autos are so much nicer than their ugly cousins and it can't be that much harder to use these in the main sets.  Anyway, there exists no known checklist for these event cards so my goal is to expand this checklist and get it published in my book.

6. Earn 1000 points on the Trading Card Database - Add BBM Sumo Wrestling Checklists
- The Trading Card Database is a refreshing enigma in the card collecting hobby.  It's self-policing and crowd-sourced data entry is so organized.  As a collector who likes to organize things, it is pure joy to navigate the site.  It also rewards you for your work by issuing points which allows you to do more things freely on the site and unlocks permission levels.  My goal is to get to a 1000 points this year, unlock Level 7, and add the BBM Sumo Wrestling Checklists to the database.  I first need a better scanner....any recommendations?

7. Start a YouTube Channel with BBM Card Box Breaks (or a variation on this theme)
- There are several YouTube channels that already do this, but I'm hoping to fill a void with the English-language piece.  I expect to make $0.00 doing this, but it will be a fun and interesting way for my son and I to breech the world of YouTube together.  Money talks and he has agreed to take on the job of being my editor and post-production guy.  Nothing fancy...just a good microphone, decent camera, and fun editing.  More to follow as we work out the details.

8. Add 5 New Sumo World Magazines to my Collection
- I'm in too deep on this one and have no other choice but to keep on trudging to the end.  The problem is that I really enjoy reading these old Sumo World magazines, but older ones to add to my collection are so hard to find these days.  They were first published in 1973 and are still being published today.  Around the year 2000 is when the internet killed this magazine, but between 1973 and 2000 the content flourished.  Because it is written in English, it was sent around the world and so there are very few on the secondary market within Japan.  It has thus limited me to eBay.  Right now I am 34 magazines short from completing the entire run from 1973 through the end of 1999.  My goal this year is to add at least 5 more to my collection to keep the momentum moving forward toward completion.

9. Finish my Yamakatsu Bruce Lee Series 1 Set, Add 5 More Cards to Series 2 & 3
- What is better than having Bruce Lee on a trading card?  It is having Bruce Lee AND Chuck Norris on a trading card together.  Series 2 (from the movie The Way of the Dragon) of these Yamakatsu cards are Chuck Norris' rookie cards and are iconic.  Although not extremely difficult to find, they do command a premium and I have been so close to finishing Series 1 of this set for a while now.  I need just two more cards.  I hope this is the year I finish it.  As for Series 2 and Series 3, I am just hoping to add at least 5 more to these sets.  If Chuck Norris can count to infinity twice, I can muster up the patience.  Although, I don't finish Chuck Norris card sets, he just tells me when I am done.




10. Maintain Google/Yahoo/Bing Search Engine Ranking for Sumo Card(s)/Menko
- This is kind of a quirky goal, but the readers of this blog definitely deserve the recognition here.  A few weeks ago, Sean from the Baseball Cards in Japan blog, posted an entry over on his Famiconblog about how his website was Google's #1 hit for the image search of the word "idiot"....this was about 7 years ago.  It got me thinking about what rank this blog is when I Google "Sumo Card".  #9 it turns out.  Then I did what every engineer would do, I conducted a quick test with Yahoo, Bing, and Google on various search terms.  Here is what I came up with:

Sumo Card: Bing #7, Google #9, Yahoo #1
Sumo Cards: Bing #2, Google #2, Yahoo #1
Sumo Menko: Bing #2, Google #1, Yahoo #1
Sumo Wrestling Card: Bing #2, Google #1, Yahoo #1
Sumo Wrestling Cards: Bing #1, Google #1, Yahoo #1

Thanks for making this blog the #1, #2, #7, & #9 website out there for sumo card and sumo menko content.

 

 

 

 

11. Add Additional Cards to my Brandon Laird & Yuta Tabuse Player Collections
- I have exactly two player collections that are non-sumo related: Brandon Laird of the Nippon Ham Fighters baseball team and Yuta Tabuse of the Tochigi Brex basketball team.  Both collections have come along nicely this year and I want to keep whittling down the number of holes in those two collections.  Laird cards that I need from his Yankees days are drying up, but there is an untapped supply of his Japanese cards on Japanese auction sites.  I've got a decent ways to go on Tabuse cards, but figure I'll pick up a few here and there over the course of this year.

12. Add 10 Additional Cards to my Airport Trading Card Collection
- Last up on the list is my Airport Trading Card set.  First issued in 2014, there are about 125 cards in the set issued from various airports around North America; although the exact total number is hard to determine since no checklist was ever made available.  I'm closing in on over 100 of these cards and still have a ways to go since the 2018 series was just released setting me back a little ways.  I'm looking to add at least 10 more this year.  We'll see where my budget leaves me with this #12 priority goal.

There you have it.  Thanks for sticking with this post to the end and thanks for reading.  I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and best of luck collecting!