Nintendo Calender 2

Nintendo’s beginnings started out in Japan in late 1889 when the company produced a playing card game known as Hanafuda. Since then, the Big N has dabbled in all forms of entertainment including video games, bowling alleys and even love hotels.

With such a rich history, it comes as no surprise Nintendo artefacts are still being dug up by dedicated fans to this day. One fan in particular — who goes by the name of Erik Voskuil — recently featured a very special piece of Nintendo history on his blog site: a very old promotional calendar.

According to Mr Voskuil — who discovered the item in a store selling old documents — the calendar is said to have been produced sometime between 1914 and 1915, and was given out to advertise Nintendo’s card business at the time. This makes the calendar 100 years old, and outside any rarities hidden away within Nintendo’s headquarters, puts it in the running as one of the oldest pieces of Nintendo history still in existence.

Nintendo Calender 3
Nintendo Calender 4

Its vintage shows, with several points of interest on the front and back. Most Noticeably, the company title, which was still known as “Yamauchi Nintendo” named after its founder during this period, Fusajirō Yamauchi. The now demolished Kyoto office founded in 1889 is also referenced, as well as the company’s two phone lines and two bank accounts that were in operation at the time.

Mr Voskuil also had a friend clean up the scans of the calendar in Photoshop, removing the kanji someone had traced onto the calendar in ink to improve their writing skills. To view these clean scans and read more about the life of this one-of-a-kind Nintendo promotional calendar, visit Before Mario.

Let us know in the comments if you are impressed by this rare piece of Nintendo history.

[source kotaku.com.au]