page_title: Milk caps (game)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Milk caps (game) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Men'uchi (面打, "face-hitting") are mass-produced clay pieces used during the Edo period of Japan. They are the precursors of menko. These are dated from the 17th to 19th centuries. Photo taken by me at the Tokyo National Museum.
context_page_description: Milk caps, is a game that was popular among children during the early-mid 1990s.
  The brand name "Pog" is owned by the World Pog Federation. The name pog originates from POG, a brand of juice made from passionfruit, orange, and guava; the use of POG bottle caps to play the game preceded the game's commercialization.
context_section_description: The game of milk caps possibly originated in Maui, Hawaii, during the 1920s or 1930s, or possibly with origins in Menko, a Japanese card game very similar to milk caps, which has been in existence since the 17th century. The game of milk caps was played on the Hawaiian island of Maui as early as 1927.  There are cap collectors that have caps dating back to the 1940s and 1950s.
  Haleakala Dairy of Maui sold a mixed fruit drink in a glass bottle with a cap under the brand name of POG. In 1955, Haleakala discontinued using the glass containers, but continued making the caps to allow the game to be played. Orchards Hawaii also continued to make milk caps after having stopped using glass bottles. In 1991, Haleakala expanded to the more populated Oahu island, which led to a revival of the game. With this revival, the Pog name began being used generically for the game.
  
  The 1990s 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 milk caps into her fifth grade curriculum as a way of teaching math and as a non-violent alternative to other popular schoolyard games, such as dodgeball. The game quickly spread from Oahu's North Shore, and by early 1992, STANPAC Inc., the small Canadian packaging company that had been manufacturing the milk caps distributed by Haleakala Dairy on Maui (the same caps that were collected by Galbiso for her class), was printing millions of milk caps every week for shipment to the Hawaiian island chain. The game soon spread to the mainland, first surfacing in California, Texas, Oregon, and Washington before spreading to the rest of the country. By 1993, the previously obscure game of milk caps, which had almost been forgotten, was now played throughout the world. 
  Milk caps returned to popularity when the World POG Federation and the Canada Games Company reintroduced them under the Pog brand name in the 1990s. The Pog fad soared, and peaked in the mid-1990s. Pogs were being handed out for opening bank accounts and in McDonald's Happy Meals. With the end of the Pogs fad, Canada Games went out of business in 1997.
  Seven other companies entered the milk cap field after a comic book and card industry convention in January 1993. SkyBox International and Marvel added the product to their lines under the names SkyCaps and Hero Caps respectively. The game had spread to California, Florida and Texas.
  The term Pog was claimed as trademark by the World Pog Federation while other companies claimed it was generic term as it was selected by the children that played the game. In October 1994, a lawsuit was settled between World Pog and Universal Pogs Association. Pog was recognized as World Pog's exclusive term and Universal Pogs changed its name to Universal Slammers, Inc.
  Because many children would keep the milk caps they won in games from other players, many school districts considered milk caps a form of gambling. Milk caps proved to be major distractions from classes and the source of various playground arguments. These elements eventually led to the banning of milk caps from various schools across North America. Other bannings occurred across Australia and Sweden.
caption: Men'uchi from the Edo period were made from clay. They were converted into paper format (menko) during the Meiji period.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2017:10:08 17:26:39", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2346", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5336", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4835", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/20", "EXIF FNumber": "12/5", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "2779/643", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4845/1918", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "1703/636", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF FocalLength": "107/25", "EXIF SubjectArea": "[1631, 1223, 881, 881]", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[107/25, 107/25, 12/5, 12/5]", "EXIF LensMake": "Apple", "EXIF LensModel": "iPhone 4S back camera 4.28mm f/2.4", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4238"}