If you think you have an old deck of hanafuda cards hidden away in the garage or a closet somewhere, Marcus Richert would like to meet you. Even if you just have memories about playing the Japanese card game here back in the day, he’d like to hear from you.
Richert, a native of Sweden who has been living in Japan for about 15 years, is a self-taught expert on hanafuda and the colorful cards that were used to play it. He’s learned how the cards traveled the globe with Japanese immigrant communities to places such as Brazil, Korea and Palau, as well as many U.S. states. But Hawaii has dealt him a tough hand, even though the game, known locally as “sakura,” was once extremely popular in the islands.
“Hanafuda really has a special place in the history of Hawaii, and Hawaii really has a special place in the history of hanafuda,” said Richert, who will be visiting the islands briefly in the next few weeks. “It’s the only place where we know the game spread outside the Japanese population. It was played by the Portuguese, the Koreans, the Chinese, even the haoles.”
He said that local Japanese-language newspapers reveal that there were hanafuda makers in Hawaii as early as 1910, and probably earlier. “But what did the cards actually look like? We don’t know,” he said. “And we don’t know how they were made.”
He found an advertisement in a local Japanese-language newspaper placed by someone trying to sell a “hanafuda-making machine.” Such a machine would be of particular interest, since making hanafuda cards is a lot more complicated than it might seem. Aside from the intricate artwork, they are usually made of several layers of paper and cardboard, with a backing paper that creates a border around the edge, all held together by a starch-based glue and coated with a polishing powder, Richert said.
“When you throw them down on the table, which you normally do when you play them, they are supposed to make a ‘thwack,’ a really nice deep sound,” he said.
Richert got interested in hanafuda after coming across a deck of vintage hanafuda cards made by Nintendo. The company is now known for video games but had started back in the 1890s as a card-making company. “I bought them and immediately I fell head-over-heels in love with the game,” said Richert, who is co-writing a book on hanafuda.
He now has more than 100 vintage decks of hanafuda cards, the oldest dating back to the 1850s. Some are valued in the thousands of dollars, he said. Although he is not necessarily looking to buy vintage hanafuda from Hawaii, it “would be very valuable, but especially the historical value,” he said. “A deck like that has never been found.”
Richert can be reached at marcusjrichert@gmail.com.
