If you are not familiar with Before Mario, you have been missing out! This blog records every piece of either Nintendo toys or games created from mid 60s to early 80. This blog is run by Erik Voskuil and most items on the website are from his personal collection.
The massive archive has been showcasing a lot of rare jewels, one of them could be the Nintendo Kyoto Souvenir Playing Cards from 1950 which are the ones we will talk about today.
From very lucky to very sad
Voskuil shared his discovery at the beginning of this month through Twitter, he showed a seventy year old Nintendo cards, featuring Kyoto in the 1950s, the best part? It were still sealed, an incredible discovery.
I cannot overstate how exicited I was to find these seventy year old Nintendo cards, featuring Kyoto in the 1950s. In all my years of collecting, these are the only copies I have come across. On top of that, they are still sealed! Which begs the question... to open or not?! https://t.co/Hn05Z7EggQ pic.twitter.com/NbH4Lh8HaW
— Beforemario (@beforemario) August 6, 2022
While he was debating himself to open it or not, many Twitter users warned him to don’t open the packages; the strongest reasons were the possibility of a price dropping after the opening and the worst one: the adhesive in the wrapper or the paper probably did not stand the test of time.
At the end Voskuil decided to open just one of them, blindly trusting the condition of the cards as they are unused, old stock but oh surprise…
At the beginning he showed the details at the box which included a sample card glued to the back of the box, which depicts the rest of the deck; a large black and white photo, showing a landmark or scene from Kyoto. Later he shared how the wrapper was glued shut by two tax stamps and what it appeared to be a deck in perfect condition.
And then, just when he removed part of the wrapper everything went down…All the cards had been completely fused together and now the dream deck was just a one tiny brick. Voskuil assumed that being pressed together for such a long time in combination of hot and humid conditions, have made the ink to stick all the cards together. Even worst there all are made from paper, so the fusion was inevitable.
Of course the other pack had the same problem and Voskuil decided to don’t try his luck and leave them that way… we must say that this was a very sad ending for a very lucky finding. Hopefully he eventually can contact a restoration expert. By now, as we were saying Erik has decided to leave it this way saying that “these packs, unfortunately, are beyond any of these methods, and will remain fused together, forever.”
You can read the whole odyssey right here.
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