More Vintage Menko Cards (part two)

 

And now, the conclusion of the treasure trove of vintage menko cards that I recently acquired.  This first group has the same manufacturer (and backing style) that our entire last post had, except these cards are super-thick, which you'd expect from menko cards. Right off the bat, we see Gamera, Godzilla, and Gappa...although I have to admit I am stumped on the bird-headed hero in a couple of the cards, and I haven't been able to discern his identity, so please leave a comment and let me know! Oh, don't miss GOLDAR from SPACE GIANTS sneaking into the bottom row! This is an all-star group for sure.

And here are the card backs!

This next group is super cool, beginning with King Ghidorah, and moving on to Bemular and Antlar from the first year of ULTRAMAN, and finally, a very cool Mechagodzilla, who apparently has sunk the Titanic.  The lizard at the end of the top row would make an awesome album cover.

All of these cards are super thick, too, but apparently have different manufacturers.  All menko cards seem to incorporate Rock/Paper/Scissors, but some even feature playing cards on their backs.  The ones at bottom left seem to want you to draw your own artwork in the space provided--which seems like a missed opportunity--while the last group actually features SPECTREMAN of all things!

Lastly, we return to some old friends, and even the "umbrella yokai," which was a surprise.  The "Godzilla vs. UFOs" card is awesome, and the Ghidorah card at bottom left is not a repeat, because this time the art is overprinted with metallic gold ink, which unfortunately doesn't show up in the scan very well.  The back is completely different, too.  I was going to say something about Ultraman fighting Godzilla again, when I finally realized the other monster was Daigoro from DAIGORO vs. GOLIATH! Holy crap! Next we have an awesome, almost tribal Ghidorah image, then a card obviously based on ULTRA Q, and finally, our bird-headed friend again.

Here are the backs, which are much more varied than earlier styles we have seen.  The "TV" ones are pretty funny (note Zorro in the upper-left....Zorro?) Also note the military hardware--early menko cards were heavy on this sort of thing, before tokusatsu and kaiju films gave them a higher calling and true purpose for their artwork.  

I hope you have enjoyed looking at these awesome cards. As you can tell, I love these things.  The kaiju-based ones don't come up very often anymore, so you have to wait for a good deal.  But, they are out there.

More Vintage Menko Cards (part one)

We have looked at cool vintage menko cards on this site in the past, which were Godzilla-themed ones that used photographs, but now here is a large lot of vintage kaiju-related ones featuring paintings!

Just in case you don't know, menko is a very old game played in Japan (with variants all over the world), where the objective is to flip over your opponent's cards by skillfully throwing yours at them (then you get to keep your winnings)! 

These cards are all from the 60's and 70's, and many are most likely unauthorized, and can therefore be a little dodgy in their depictions of characters. As you can see in this first group, it's heavy on ULTRA Q and the first ULTRAMAN (and maybe AGON THE ATOMIC DRAGON there in the lower left corner?).

Here are the backs of this first group.  I've tried to group all of the cards together with similar reverse artwork, since I have no way of telling you anything about their manufacturers.  I can tell you that all of these we will see in this first part are thinner than the normal menko cards, these being about as thick as the backing cardboard on a note pad.  Also, it seems to be a tradition for nearly all menko cards to include "Paper/Rock/Scissors" on their backs...I always figured it was the way that kids determined who took the first turn!

What I can't figure out, or find information about anywhere, is the significance of the string of numbers on the backs of most cards.  If anyone knows, please leave a comment!

This second group is interesting.  It starts off with a pseudo-MARINE BOY, then goes back to Ultra-kaiju (by the way, the Gomora in the bottom left is the same artwork from the first group, but has a completely different back as we will see), then gives us GAPPA, and for some reason,...IT CONQUERED THE WORLD!

And here are the backs. To say these are crudely cut is almost an understatement!

And here is the last of this group.  Once again the duplicate cards have completely different backs.   

Next time we will look at another great batch of menko cards, by a variety of manufacturers, featuring even more guest stars, from Gamera to Goldar!

Countdown to Halloween 2024 (Week 5)!

Hard to believe, but here we are again at another Halloween already! Let's wrap this up just in time for the festivities:

Haunted House (Italy, 1985) This is another of those records that is one side hellscape, and the other side individual sound effects that are divided up.  It's very well done.  I recently pulled this one out of a dusty box at a Game Exchange, and the Treat turned into a Trick when I removed the record to find deep, very feelable scratches all over both sides, done maliciously with some sort of garden tool.  I cried to the heavens: "WHY?!!!?!?!!"

Tales To Dream By (Weirdo, 1962) This is another great one, apparently an amateur production, but done extremely well.  It sort of purports to be a radio show, almost, as it has openings and closings, but presents four tales that are very spooky, especially alone in the dark.  Very expensive record if you can ever find one (and you won't)!

Thrillers & Chillers (Troll, 1973) Another in the extremely fun series of great Troll stories.  Can you handle yet another rendition of "The Tell-Tale Heart"? Also the old "Monkey's Paw" chestnut, and it goes from there. Well done with familiar voices that you will recognize from vintage commercials and other places!

Happy Halloween!

LINK: Spooky Month 2024 (Week 5)

Monster Initial Stickers (Topps, 1974)

 

Original Wrapper!

In the first volume of our Godzilla Guide, covering all vintage Godzilla items of the U.S., I have an occasional category that pops up called "Unauthorized, But Who Cares," when an item isn't exactly officially licensed, but is too cool to ignore.  Today's item falls into that category!

As you can see, Topps had an interesting series of sticker cards in 1974, where each card offered two different letters filled with cool monster artwork.  Here is the "Godzilla" part of that set:

Or "Not Godzilla," but it's pretty obvious what they are going for here.  The backs of the cards were blank (puzzle cards were later found in packs, rather than, you know, just actually using the card backs for that, which would've made more sense.

Also, there are variants to be found, as sometimes a letter of the alphabet could be paired with a different one, such as these other examples:

It's a pretty cool set.  Topps continued the idea of initial cards for several years, here and there (the stickers for their EMPIRE STRIKES BACK series, for example).  My problem was, I was never brave enough to actually use these kinds of things...I couldn't bear to stick one on a notebook...then the card would be ruined! I always saw them as collectibles, even when I was tiny.  Maybe there is a gene for that, after all.

Countdown to Halloween 2024 (week 4)!

 Five weeks in October this year! Let's keep it going:

Great Ghost Stories (Troll, 1973) - More fun, scary, and sometimes whimsical stories all featuring familiar voice folks of the era, done in the unmistakable style of this label.  All their Halloween records are expensive today.

Spooky Sound Effects (Sounds Records, 1961) - The earlier sound effects records are some of the most fun (and rare)!

Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart (HBR, 1966) - And now, the star of our show.  You know William Castle the showman, and William Castle the director, but do you know William Castle the actor? Here he takes this overused story and catapults it into the STRATOSPHERE.  You have simply got to hear him go completely over-the-top raving bonkers into madness.  He totally pulls it off, and it's a treat not to be missed!

LINK: Spooky Month 2024 Countdown (Week 4)

It's That Time Again...

Finally, a candidate we can all believe in.

I don't know why you would need any other choices, but just in case:

If not, I can't help you...Pat Paulsen is no longer with us...is Joe Walsh still a write-in candidate?

Countdown to Halloween 2024 (week 3)!

 We are halfway through October, and here are three more Halloween delights:

An Evening With Boris Karloff And His Friends (1967) - Remember the days before home video, when there was no way to re-live the classic Universal horror movies, other than to read FAMOUS MONSTERS and patiently wait for them to be shown again on television? This record helps 1960's kids with the wait, because Boris hosts a cavalcade of audio excerpts straight from those classic films! This one's been gone for many a year.

Night In A Graveyard (1985) - Here is a sort of famous one from Italy.  More than just a "sound effects" record, side A boasts that it was "Recorded Live On The Estate Of Count Dracula"! It's very well done, and was used to scare many trick-or-treaters who were questioning whether or not to approach that one house in every neighborhood that always went way out, with speakers in the windows, blasting this very record!

October 31 Halloween Party (2003) - And here comes a curve ball.  But then again, maybe you need more music for your upcoming Halloween Party!............if so, you are going to have to explain to me how these are Halloween songs.  "Rock The Casbah"? "Bad Bad Leroy Brown"?! Anyone? 

LINK: Spooky Month 2024 Countdown (Week 3)

CLASH OF THE MOVIE MONSTERS (Imperial Toys, 1987)

 

In a sense, this landed in exactly the right month of the year, but like I repeat on this blog all the time--and like I tell people all the time: monsters are for every day.

Here we have a mega-rare boxed set of action figures made by Imperial Toys, where they cleverly took four of their existing products and combined them into a new one.  Obviously, the biggest rarity here is the box itself, so let's look at that first...and it does NOT disappoint.  There's a lot to unpack here:

First, let's enjoy the front of the box, where Frankenstein's monster grapples with Count Dracula, while in the background, Godzilla and King Kong rampage.  Don't miss the middle, however, where a damsel in distress is tied to a phone booth.  Yes, the outside of the phone booth.  It's amazing.

"Right away," you are thinking, "we have a scale problem." And they do their best to hide it in the photo here, but we will return to that in a moment.  Of course, if we are being fair, these figures were meant for kids to bury in the sandbox and take on all kinds of rough and tumble adventures, rather than to be displayed as works of art. S.H. Monsterarts they aren't.

I'll get emotional if we dwell on this price tag too long...but you got all four for NINE BUCKS?!?!

One more photo before we dive in.  Are you noticing any discrepancies?

Before we go any further, I'm not looking at the Godzilla alone because we have covered this figure thoroughly.  To see everything you wanted to know about the 6-inch Imperial Godzilla figure, go to this post!

Frankenstein('s monster) is a big lug, nearly 8 inches tall, with arms that can reach his kneecaps, ending in huge, red-veined hands.  

He, like everyone else, is solid and has a chunky, substantial feel.  Also, he just wants to be loved.

King Kong is, really, perfectly done.  He has a real presence about him and looks a lot like the original in the face.  I know later, in the 1990's, Imperial made a version of this figure with a red button on his chest, allowing for roaring and snorting, and the green eyes lighting up! It was cool.

Dracula is, oddly, the biggest of the lot, at a full 8 inches tall (remember, these guys were originally made separately from each other), and is also the heaviest, because the cape is solidly and thickly molded contiguous with the body as one piece.  This can make standing very difficult.  The main problem with him (besides the likeness, but nobody could legally use Lugosi's face back then) is his arms.  They move up--in a permanent "I'm playing the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" pose--but not down, again because of the cape.  It's frustrating.

Okay, now we are back to the interesting size problem...which bothered no kid ever, of course. The Godzilla figure was first made in 1985 (I think the others figures are dated 1986, but Kong has no date at all I believe), so they were obviously never meant to really go together.  All of these figures were sold loose as well as carded versions--for the Godzilla, the carded version came later, in 1992 to be precise, so maybe that's true for the others, too. Here they are all together:

When everyone's in a line-up, it's pretty telling, but like I said, this would've stopped no kid ever from playing with these, and that's because these guys are nothing short of awesome.  Their chunkiness gives them charm to us, now, but held up to rugged play, back then. 

You may also be thinking: "How in the world do all of those guys fit into that small box?"  And the answer is....just barely!

Countdown to Halloween 2024 (week 2)!

Something a little different this week, because these discs go together, but were probably sold separately, who knows...

Anybody remember LASERLIGHT, the budget label that released, well, whatever they could get their hands on?  I first encountered them as a young CD collector. I think they were the first "bins full of cheap CDs" that I ever ran into.  Mostly Classical at that time, though. It was a huge deal to find $3 CDs when they were all twenty bucks or more.

This is a helping of Halloween cheese put out by them in 1999-2000, but in excellent packaging.  The covers were shiny foil printed on heavy stock, and each disc's inlay and spine were a different bright highlighter color--this made for a nice asthetic, but is impossible to scan for some reason.

You get a little of everything--two discs of movie themes, a disc of original music, and a disc of scary stories:

I will admit I haven't even finished going through them yet, which I will rectify, and here we are already at Week 2! Enjoy!

LINK: Spooky Month 2024 Countdown (Week 2)

Countdown to Halloween 2024 (week 1)!

 

To start us off, here's a scan of a Citrus Hill Orange Juice reflective patch (really more of a sticker) from 1982, to slap on the backs of your young trick-or-treaters! I recently found this unused inside of a book that I purchased!!!

Well, it's already that time of year again, and nobody's happier than me.  And this year we get five weeks of October, so get ready for an onslaught of Halloween goodness. Someday we really will run out...but, not today:

Arch Oboler - Drop Dead! An Exercise In Horror (1962)

This one is a real treat.  Oboler was a writer of many types of things, but is best known for his run on the LIGHTS OUT horror radio show.  These vignettes examining different types of horror are incredibly well done, and a couple are downright terrifying.  If you grew up hearing Bill Cosby's routine about being scared to death as a child by a radio story about a giant chicken heart (which was a LIGHTS OUT episode by the way), it's here! Don't miss this one.

Monster Mash EP (Peter Pan Records, no date)

And there there's this rarity.  We begin with possibly the worst cover of "Monster Mash" you've heard in a long time, and then conclude with three random tracks from Frankie Stein albums (which were on Power Records anyway, which was joined at the hip to Peter Pan, so maybe it's not so weird after all).

The Sounds Of Halloween (Hallmark, 1986)

As Halloween sound effects records are so common, we are going to divide them up like we did last year, so there's not an entire week of only sound effects records.  This one is dear to me because I owned it as a kid.  It is one side sound effects, and one side sound-alike covers of Halloween songs.  Is "Purple People Eater" even remotely a Halloween song? I think that's stretching.

LINK: Spooky Month 2024 Countdown (Week 1)

Don't forget that previous years of Spooky Month downloads are still....undead on this very blog, as well as several other related items!