Jonny Quest Menko, Tazos Cards
Scans and text content © 2008-2011 by Craig Fuqua
These are Jonny Quest "Menko" cards from Japan, the small one measuring about 2-1/8 inches across and the larger one 3-1/16 inches.
The age is unknown, but they're probably from the late 1960s or early 1970s.
Menko cards are thick pieces of cardboard with images on one or both sides. Children would throw their card next to an opponent's card to try to flip it with the air current.
On these cards, the small hand images that look like peace signs actually represent scissors for a rock-paper-scissors menko game, Gu-Choki-Pa. The numbers on the cards, 42255 on the small card and 85775290, indicate the cards could also be used for "Fighting Numbers" menko games. For more information, see WikiHow's article on the different ways to play menko. Examples of cards with other Gu-Choki-Pa symbols are on the SumoMenko.com website.
Menko card games may date back 200 years or more. For more information on the history of menko, see Wikipedia's article on Menko and one menko collector's recounting of the history on SumoFanMag.com.
These are some "tazos" from Peru. Like pogs, each is about 1.5 inches in diameter
and were probably stuck inside the caps on milk or juice bottles as collectible premiums.
The source of the images is unknown, so they may have been original drawings for the tazos.
Notice Dr. Quest is called "Prof.," Bandit is "Fito" (perhaps the Peruvian
version of Fido) and "Race" Bannon is called by his first name, Roger.
The trading cards below are from Argentina, where they may have been called "figuritas."
They're the same size as the tazos above and look like they're made of the same cardstock,
so I'm guessing their source is the same. Hadji is called, "Haji," which was the spelling
in a lot of the licensing material given out by Hanna-Barbera, while Bandit is "Bandido."
Again, "Race" is called "Roger."
The seller said they were made in
1969 and that the artist was Josè Clemens.
