** This section is still under construction! **
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What are POGs?
MILKCAPS, TAZOS, POGS, or TROVS are round paperboard bottle-tops that many dairys used to include as the closure atop bottles of milk - some classical dairys still do! They were made of 2 layers of stiff board, with a flip-up pull tab, secured with a staple. It fit snugly in a groove on the inside of the bottle neck. The older waxed milkcaps are HIGHLY collectible.
They are approximately 1 5/8" (= 4cm) in diameter.
The POG Game - Brief History
According to what I have read, the Japanese played a game called MENKOS over 600 years ago. They used round playing pieces the same size as milkcaps but they were made of clay, ceramic or wood, and had colorful images of classical Japanese icons such as Sumo wrestlers, Samurai warriors, etc. on them.
The early 20th century Japanese immigrants to Hawaii apparently brought this game with them, and from the early 1900s until the about the 1960s, bottled milk in the islands, and elsewhere, had a waxed top insert which kids used to play basically the same game as Menkos.
In the 1980s, the Haleakala Dairy on Maui introduced a new fruit drink called Passion Orange Guava juice, and advertised it on their milkcap inserts as POG. This led to the phenomenal popularity of the POG game in the mid-1980s and into the 1990s.
At about the same time, a young Californian saw his first POGs in Hawaii, and decided to design a "better" one, which he called TROV. It also became a staple of POG players and collectors.
In the meantime, a shrewd business-minded California dude, Alan Rypinski, went to Hawaii and bought the POG trademark from the dairy and later founded the World POG Federation (WPF). They hold POG / TROV tournaments around the country. One was held at Disneyland in 1994.
POGs are also VERY popular in Europe (England, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France), and I have them round and hexagonal (6-sided) shaped. At least in England they are called TAZOS and I have also seen the word PAWG used for them by European collectors. Special soccer, Star Wars, Star Trek and many other POG series were often included in bags of potato chips or other foods. Special storage albums were also available by mail order. Some of the European POGs which I collected have several small slits or groves along the circumference, or one at the center of the sides of the hexagon. These may be used to construct things by interlocking the individual POGs. CLIPPOS are also found.
In the United States and Canada, Special Collector Editions were included as premiums at fast-food joints and sold at places such as Disney World, or distributed by sports teams. They may be found today at select toy, hobby, sports collectible and other specialty shops.
Some of the kewl series include -- Power Rangers, Barbie, Toy Story, Flintstones, TROV GOLD, Poison Caps, State Capitals, Hi-C Marvel X-Men, Knott's Berry Farm series, World Soccer Cup, Disney characters, Spice Girls, Sumo Dudes, Beavis and Butthead, Haleakala Dairy POG (THE ORIGINAL!), Anaheim BULLFROGS, Smurf, 7-Eleven and McDonalds sets, Pokemon, DC SkyCaps with Super Heroes, Super Villains, Jurassic Park, among others, including MANY different promotional series isued by different businesses.
POG Accessories
SLAMMER, KINI, BLASTER, TROUNCER -- heavier POGs made of wood, aluminum, pewter, acrylic, PVC, or just thicker fiberboard stock. These may also be home-made by glueing 2 POGs together, or by placing a metal washer or quarter between two POGs and joining them somehow.
GAME BOARD -- usually a round flat playing surface made of wood, cloth, plastic, cork or other material. Any hard flat surface makes a great play area, even a sidewalk!
POG STORAGE CONTAINERS -- top or side opening plastic tubes of various lengths, flip-top plastic compartmented boxes, archival plastic sheet holders which may be placed in a collector binder, or just plain zip-lock baggies!
MOONCASTER, LAUNCHERS -- a curved device which is used to "launch" a pog into the air, something that may be kewl to do at a park or in your backyard. Apparently they really fly a great distance. I can see a dog retrieving a frisbee, but wonder how they would do with bringing back a POG?
POG CAPS, NECKLACES, BUTTONS
MAGAZINES, NEWSLETTERS, BOOKS, VIDEOS, CLUBS
POG - The Game
May be played with from 2 to 6 players
Each player stacks some of his POGs, image face down, in the center of the playing area until about 10 - 12 POGs are in the stack. Mix them up before stacking
Decide who will go first, then play right to left (if there are more than 2 players)
The player than tosses / throws his KINI - SLAMMER - BLASTER - TROUNCER on top of the stack, attempting to turn over as many POGs as possible on his move. He then wins those which flip face up.
The next player restacks those remaining in the playing field and repeats the process.
When only one POG remains in the center, it may be TIPPED by pressing a KINI on the edge of the POG, hopefully causing it to flip over - much in the same way as one would play Tiddly-Winks.
The winner is the one who was able to turn over the most POGs. I have been able to turn over as many as 4 POGs in a single move!
There are MANY different variations of this basic game plan, and at a tournament, there are official rules and even judges.
It is a kewl game for kids, non-agressive and great fun. They can learn from some of the series, such as the State Capitals, and they get to appreciate their "collection", trade among their friends for the ones they don't have, and properly care for their treasures. It can be played in the school yard, on the sidewalk or on the floor or a table inside when the weather is bad.
They seem to be rather inexpensive, UNLESS you want the really rare ones, which is the same with any collectible. MUCH easier than a pet to take care of, and cleaner too!
I can still remember FLIP-CARDS when I was a youngster. They were like the sports cards of today, more or less, and you would flip them onto the ground and try to touch one flipped by another player. You would then win that card. They could also be traded -- who would have thought to sell them! In those days you just kept them in a drawer or a shoe box because there were no archival holder - sheets to store them in a binder or anything!
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