The name “POG” originated from a brand of juice made from Passionfruit, Orange and Guava. I didn’t know this little fact when the Pogs game first appeared in the United States. The Pogs were fashioned after vintage milk bottle caps. They were made of stiff cardboard and usually printed with the dairies name on it.
A bit of history about the Pogs game:
- The game of Pogs possibly originated in Hawaii in the 1920′s or 1930′s
- It’s also possible that the game had originated from a Japanese card game called Menko which existed since the 17th century
- Pogs returned to popularity when the World POG Federation and the Canada Games Company reintroduced them to the public in the 1990′s
- The Pog fad soared and peaked in the mid 1990′s before rapidly fading out
- Pogs were played on the Hawaiian island of Maui as early as 1927, but the 1990′s revival is credited to Blossom Galbiso, a teacher and guidance counselor who taught at Waialua Elementary School in Oahu. In 1991, Galbiso introduced the game she had played as a little girl to a new generation of students, soon incorporating Pogs into her fifth grade curriculum as a way of teaching math.
- Pogs spread from Hawaii to California, Texas, Oregan and Washington, before spreading to the rest of the country
- 1993 Pogs played throughout the world
Here is wikipedia.com’s description of how the game is played:
Rules may vary among players, but the game variants generally have common gameplay features. Each player has their own collection of Pogs and a slammer (a heavier game piece). Before the game, players decide whether to play ‘for keeps’, or not. ‘For keeps’ implies that the players keep the POGs that they win and forfeit those that have been won by other players. The game can then begin as follows:
1. The players each contribute an equal number of pogs to build a stack with the pieces facing down, which will be used during the game.
2. The players take turns throwing their slammer down onto the top of the stack, causing it to spring up and the pogs to scatter. Each player keeps any pogs that land ‘face up’ after their throw.
3. After each throw, the pogs which have landed ‘face down’ are then re-stacked for the next player.
4. When no pogs remain in the stack, the player with the most pogs is the ‘winner’.
Pogs were so popular at one point, that major corporations were jumping on the band wagon to cash in on their popularity.
Check out wikipedia.com for more details:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogs
