I picked up my first ever diecut menko card a few months back. This is a card of Takeshi Doigaki of the Osaka Tigers and it dates from 1947. It's part of a set that Engel labels as JDM-1.
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The graphics remind me a little of Terry Gilliam's animations from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
1947 appears to be the first year that baseball cards for professional baseball in Japan exist. When I browse through Engel's latest vintage card guide, anything pre-war appears to be for either the Tokyo Big Six league or for the 1934 US tour of Japan. Engel lists a bromide set (JBR 73) from 1947 as the earliest post war set - it features players in their 1946 uniforms so it is assumed to be a set from the 1947 pre-season. Engel states that card production in Japan halted in the late 1930's, just after the beginning of professional baseball in Japan so there are no known cards from the earliest years of pro ball.
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