Facsimile production was a sideline business. Hanafuda and ehagaki 絵葉書 was bulk of his business
Marufuku Nintendo Card Company building from 1889 in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto.
Japanese game of "hanafuda".
The name, which translates as "flower cards", is as innocent as the thick cards are diminutive, each measuring 1 5/16"w x 2 1/8"h. T
In 1886 Hanafuda was popular as a betting game though all gambling had been banned for almost 200 years. A wily Osaka book merchant with a dubious history, Maeda Kihei, decided to open a hanafuda shop in Tokyo that year. He ran into a stonewall of opposition from landlords and the advertising media.
Common knowledge held that hanafuda, as a gambling game, was illegal. Maeda reasoned that it was the gambling that was illicit. The cards were "fair game" so to speak and he circumvented the opposition by counterintuitively petitioning the police to ban the sale of hanafuda cards. The police officially declined since sale of the cards themselves was legal.
As legit sales increased, Nintendo entered the picture in 1889. Founder Fusajiro Yamauchi bet the house on the making and selling of high quality hanafuda cards, which he had printed on mulberry tree.
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