Nintendo

Richard loved his Nintendo. I'm being treated for Mother's Day at a very special place. Photos to come Monday.... From Interesting Facts: "Nintendo was founded in 1889 to sell playing cards. Nintendo has been synonymous with video games since the 1980s, but its first century of operation was rather different. The company was actually founded, on September 23, 1889, to sell playing cards, long before a certain Italian plumber was born. Originally known as Nintendo Koppai by founder Fusajiro Yamauchi, the hand-painted hanafuda cards (“flower cards” in Japanese) that it manufactured became Japan’s most popular playing cards by the early 1900s. This largely remained the case into the mid-20th century, by which time the company had tried expanding into different markets — instant rice, a taxi service, even ballpoint pens. Most of these ventures didn’t last, and it wasn’t until the video game crash of 1983 that Nintendo truly became the company it is today." Well, of course I had to find images of these hand-painted cards...enjoy!