Nintendo Love Tester sold in 1971 in USA

The Love Tester, created by Nintendo in 1969, was an electronic gadget intended to break the ice between dating couples, by giving them something to talk about and an innocent reason to touch each other.

Although based on relative simple technology, it was nevertheless a stepping stone for the company on its path towards more advanced electronic toys and games.

Nintendo Love Tester (1969)

The Love Tester proved quite a sales hit in Nintendo's home country Japan. However, at the time Nintendo had no sales organisation outside Japan. Perhaps they also had little desire to expand their buying audience that way, being busy enough conquering their local market. That certainly changed in the 1980s, when they started having increasing international successes with arcade games, handheld electronics and video games, and built their own worldwide marketing, sales and distribution network on the back of that commercial success.

That does not mean that no Nintendo products from the 1970s or earlier found their way into the hands of customers outside Japan. Toys like Challenge Dice, Ultra Machine (Slugger Mate) and Ultra Scope were sold abroad, through various Western sales companies, who bought stock and did some light localisation.

One of such deals involved the Lido Designs Inc company from New York, who offered the Love Tester through mail order to the American public in the early 1970s.

Instructions for one person and for couples

In the Lido Designs version of the Love Tester, an instruction leaflet in English replaces the original Japanese manual.

Nintendo Ele-conga Soft Case (エレコンガ ソフトケース) from 1972

One of the intriguing Nintendo products from the 1970s is the Ele-conga, an analogue electronic musical instrument.

Although not hugely expensive given its build quality (retailing at ¥9.800, which is roughly ¥30.000 in todays money when corrected for inflation), it was intended to be a serious instrument, not a toy.

That Nintendo was aiming for this to be an item for adults, is evident from the photo on the front of the promotional leaflet. It shows a trio of grown-ups making music with two Ele-congas, accompanied by an acoustic guitar.

Ele-conga Leaflet (front and back)

On the back of this leaflet, three accessories are listed, that were sold separately as options:

• Auto Player (available for an additional ¥1.200)
• Connector Cord (¥500)
• Soft Case (¥1.000)

The Auto Player (オートプレーヤー), pictured in the left-bottom corner of the back of the leaflet, allowed for programmed rhythms to be repeated (semi) automatically.

Although the Ele-conga includes its own speaker, it was possible to connect it to the line-in of a music center or tape deck, for external amplification or recording. The Connector Cord (コネクタコード) was a two-meter long cable that provided the required connection, using standard 3.5 mm jacks.

While pretty rare today, both the Ele-conga and Auto Player can be found as second hand items in Japan, if you know where to look and show some patience and perseverance.

An official Ele-conga Connector Cord, I have never seen in real life, though I still hope to find one, one day. As is often the case, accessories such as these are very hard to find, as they were sold in (much) smaller numbers than the Ele-conga itself. They also got misplaced or lost more easily, or no longer recognised for what they were, and thrown out.

Ele-conga options (accessories): Auto Player, Connector Cord and Soft Case

For many years, the Soft Case (ソフトケース) also remained only an option listed on a piece of paper. As no picture was included on the leaflet, and none of these appeared in collector circles, it was not clear what this case looked like, or if it was actually produced and sold at all.

This changed recently, when one of these showed up at last.

So presented here in its full glory: an original Ele-conga Soft Case from 1972!

Popeye Gold Flicker (パイ ゴールド フリッカー): a rare item from Nintendo's food history

This empty, rusty little tin may not look like much to the casual observer.

Still, it is one of the prize possessions in my vintage Nintendo collection, because of it's part in the company's history.

It is rather small, with a height of only 9.3 centimeters and a diameter of 2.4 centimeters. The top is opened, and it's contents are long gone.

The brand name on the front is Popeye Gold Flicker (ポパイ ゴールド フリッカー). When it was still new, some sixty years ago, the tin must have been shiny gold coloured. Part of this colour is still visible, though much has disappeared over time.

The company name on the front is not Nintendo, but San'ō syokuhin Co., Ltd. This company, started in 1961 when Nintendo's business was still going into multiple directions, was Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi's vehicle for entering Japan's food industry. For this Nintendo started a joint-venture with two partners: the University of Kyoto and the Omikenshi Company. This joint venture was called San'ō syokuhin.

The San'ō syokuhin company developped a number of products for the growing market of convenience food: instant rice, instant ramen and seasoning mixes. This tin is an item from their range of such seasoning products, that are called furikake in Japan. Hence the brand name Flicker, pronounced "furik-kaa" in Japanese.

An important part of the marketing of the San'ō syokuhin company was the use of licensed figures from America, in particular Popeye and Disney characters. A few years earlier, Nintendo already had acquired license rights for the use of these figures on their playing cards, and thus had the contacts to extend these rights for these food products.

Ads for Nintendo Baseball Game from 1960

Today we are taking a look at some copies of one of Japan's shōnen manga, called Shūkan Shōnen Sandē (週刊少年サンデー), which means Weekly Shōnen Sunday. Shōnen manga are magazines aimed at boys from around 12 to 18 years, featuring comics but also news items and information about sports and leasure activities that interest this demographic.

Weekly Shōnen Sunday is one of the longest running of these magazines in Japan. It started in 1959 and is still published weekly today, sixty-one years later (released on Wednesday's, despite its name).

Weekly Shōnen Sunday - front

These magazines are great to browse through for people with an interest in Japan's (pop) culture. However, we are especially interested in the ads on the back of these issues, as they include advertisements for one of Nintendo earliest toys, the Disney Baseball Game (ディズニー野球盤, which means Disney Baseball Board).

Weekly Shōnen Sunday - back

The history of Nintendo as a toy company - when they started expanding beyond cards, chess, mahjong and other more traditional games - is still a bit misty.

In the official company overview at the Nintendo corporate website, the 1966 Ultra Hand is the first toy mentioned. Although this was a landmark event for Nintendo, as it was their first million-seller toy, it is often mistaken as the first Nintendo toy, which it wasn't. In the period from the end of the 1950s up to the release of the Ultra Hand, Nintendo did produce various other toys, including this baseball game.

Nintendo Disney Baseball Game (version B)

Nintendo Chiritori leaflet from 1979

The 1979 Chiritori remote controlled miniature vacuum cleaner is another idea that sprouted from Gunpei Yokoi's brain, like so many quirky Nintendo products from the pre-Famicom era.

The box art is a well designed two-tone affair. However, in my opinion it does not really exuberate fun. While this little vacuum is anything but serious. It is just a toy, a novelty item.

The accompanying trade leaflet does a much better job in showing what the Chiritori is to be used for: to play. This leaflet, dated April 16 1979, was used to advertise the product to shops and wholesale buyers.

Chiritori leaflet front and back

The scene on the front shows the Chiritori in action, with a colourful drawing.

Nintendo's washable playing cards from 1953

In the first decades of Nintendo's history, that started in 1889, the company grew by automating the manufacturing of hanafuda and Western style playing cards, and by expanding its sales and distribution network throughout Japan.

Although the production process changed during this time, the product itself remained more or less the same: printed paper cards.

It took over sixty year before the first major product innovation happened, in the early 1950s. According to the timeline on Nintendo's corporate website, in 1953 they "Became the first company to succeed in mass-producing plastic playing cards in Japan."

The first major events in the Nintendo's history, as listed on nintendo.co.jp

This milestone was reached four years after a 21 year old Hiroshi Yamauchi, the great-grandson of founder Fusajiro Yamauchi, took the helm as Nintendo's president.

Before the proud introduction in 1953, it had taken Nintendo quite some effort and time to get to grips with the process necessary to produce these plastic cards, as the printing on plastic was very different from printing on paper, and it was difficult to print colours consistently.

The leaflet shown here is one of the earliest commercial publications that marketed this new product.

NAP card leaflet (front)

Fifty year old Nintendo Playing Card sample book

In the 1960s, Nintendo produced and sold hundreds of different playing card designs. When pitching these to prospective wholesale buyers and toy shop owners, the Nintendo sales departement used sample books that showcased the range of cards available.

While in later years Nintendo used printed brochures and leaflets to advertise their cards product - like this one from 1983 - the sample books used in the 1960s were more like albums, containing actual cards.

Not only did these show the cards in exactly the color, size and shape as they would be delivered, but it also provided a flexible sales catalogue, that could easily be changed to stay up to date as the product range evolved. This was vital in these playing cards heydays, when new designs were constantly added.

For Nintendo collectors and playing card enthusiasts, finding such a sample book is much like a holy grail. Not many were made, let alone survive fifty years on. They were intended for internal use by Nintendo only, and they are as rare as hen's teeth.

Some time ago, I was lucky to acquire two copies, with different content. In this post we will take a look at one of the two, and in a future post I will cover the other one.

This sample book dates from a time when Nintendo was still branding itself as Nintendo Playing Card Co., Ltd. Although no exact date of origin is known for this item, based on the contents these copies must be from the late 1960s.

It is possible that this particular sample book design was introduced some years earlier, and used for multiple years, changing the content over time.

Nintendo playing card sample book - front cover

The book measures 34.8 by 23.6 centimetres. It contains eight thick pieces of paper that hold cards on both sides, making a total of 16 pages.

The book contains real specimens of playing cards, which are glued to the pages. Most of the pages include eight cards, while some contain between five and seven cards. The total number of cards included in this sample book is 121. All cards are different.

Added Nintendo mini game # 50 to my collection

This being the first post of 2020, let me start by wishing you the best for this year. Granted, a quarter of it is already over. And with the global virus pandemic in full effect, it probably will not go down as one of the best years ever. But still, I hope you can make the most of it.

The last months I have been able to add some missing items to my collection, and I plan to show these in a few blog posts over the coming weeks, and included some things I have not covered before as well.

Today we start with a game from Nintendo's Mini Game series. The game is called Picture Puzzle (ピクチュアパズル). Like all of theseMini Games, it dates from the first half of the 1970s.

As reported a few month ago, I was chasing the last one of the 50 known Mini Games that I needed to complete the collection of these fun little toys. To my surprise I discovered another one, that I was not yet aware of.

Mini Game Picture Puzzle, the 50th mini game in my collection

This particular Mini Game is very simliar in style to two other Mini Games already in my collection, shown here in the middle and right in the picture below.

These two other games, although appearing to be different, both contain an identical set of three cardboard puzzles. It is just a different one of the three that is shown on top in the blister pack.