Dancing

Published April 28, 2025 Updated April 28, 2025

“Dancing” playing cards manufactured by Nintendo for Torii Dance School, Osaka.

1970 JapanAdvertisingHealthSportsNintendo

Each card has a photo of the owner of the Torii Dance School in Osaka, and his wife Yoko dancing. The images are repeated in each suit. The backs are pink with a gold silhouette of a couple dancing. The joker has a text in Chinese : 鳥居弘忠・洋子夫妻監修 which translates to: “Produced by Hirotada Torii and his wife, Yoko”. •  See: Torii Dance School website

“Dancing” playing cards manufactured by Nintendo for Torii Dance School c.1970 “Dancing” playing cards manufactured by Nintendo for Torii Dance School c.1970

Above: “Dancing” playing cards manufactured by Nintendo for Torii Dance School, c.1970. 52 cards + 2 jokers in plastic box and white cardboard sleeve.

“Dancing” playing cards manufactured by Nintendo for Torii Dance School c.1970
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By Jon Randall

Australia • Member since May 28, 2020 • Contact

From 6 or 7 years of age I enjoyed playing cards with my family, and still enjoy a variety of games today with various groups and individuals. I contribute my competitive nature to enjoying games … it’s not that I like to win, I dislike losing! I was barely 10 years old when my great Uncle left me a small collection of playing cards and that was the starting point of my collecting. The competitive streak in me helped develop me into a competitive swimmer that sent me to various places around the world, including a 6 year stint in the US, where for much of that time I was at university. I’ve always enjoyed car boots flea markets, yard sales, charity shops etc., and my eye would never miss a pack of playing cards. Even after my swimming career finished I coached at a high level for many years and continued enjoying the discovery of some great finds around the world. For decades my collection continued to grow, despite selling a portion of it via eBay over the years. It wasn’t until post 2010 that I realised, mostly due to correspondence with Australian friends, that there were so many single playing card collectors. This intrigued me. I had so many packs of cards at home that I made the bold decision to share a good number with singles collectors, and subsequently listed around 7000 for sale on eBay. That did make a dent in my collection, but there’s still around 30,000 packs taking up quite a bit of space at home. Crazy? Yes, but I’ve seen bigger hoards a few times! There’s so many I surprise myself finding packs I forgot I had when I look in a box I’d not seen in a while.

My eBay IDs if you’d like to look are “worldwide_playing_cards” & “playing_cards_world

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