The card is a bit of a mystery to me. I haven't been able to find a set that looks like this in Engel. The back has a picture of a gun wielding hero, with "General" written on it, a rock/paper/scissors symbol and a long menko number. I've never seen baseball menko with the same back:
I bought it from a seller as a single along with menko from two other sets (JCM 138 and 139) which were issued in 1960 and 1962. The size and general look and feel of this card is very similar to the cards from those sets, and those years fall in the right ballpark given how young Nagashima looks on this one. So I guess this is an uncatalogued early 60s menko of his. It might come from a set that featured non-sports subjects as well, the seller seemed to have a big pile of random menko and only the three that I bought featured baseball players.
Awesome! I have this sumo set catalogued as the M591 set. It’s from 1959 given Wakanohana is a Yokozuna and Asashii has yet to make Yokozuna. Have only seen sumo menko and this is an extremely hard set to find and I’ve catalogued it as extremely rare. Definitely a cool find!
ReplyDeleteOh wow, thanks for the info! I had a feeling it was from a set that featured non baseball subjects too!
DeleteNo worries. An extremely rare set and I have only uncovered about 8 sumo examples in 20 years. They hardly ever pop up.
DeleteI did some more digging and the cartoon character on the back was from a show called Moonlight Mask. Definitely a 1959 issue as the show and movies were only featured in 1958 and 1959. I suppose one could argue 1960, but seems less likely. I have a post that is going up tomorrow with a little bit more information on the sumo set.
DeleteOh wow, cool! Thanks for the info, I look forward to seeing that post!!
DeleteBeautiful card. Pretty exciting to find a card that you've never seen another single from. Hope you're able to solve this mystery at some point.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I think SumoMenoMan has already solved it!!
DeleteThanks!
ReplyDelete