Japanese handmade Hanafunda playing cards

Complete set of handmade Japanese Hanafunda playing cards. There are 12 suits (48 cards total) of four cards each. Each suit consists of four variants of the same motif, which include flowers, leaves, insects, birds and deer. They are hand-drawn in blue, black, yellow, green and purple and pink ink. One of the cards also bears a hand-drawn Japanese character signifying 'good luck'. The cards are made from thin cardboard and each corner has been rounded.

This set of Japanese Hanafunda playing cards was found in a train at Central Station, Sydney. They had been left behind by one of the last group of Japanese prisoners of war to be repatriated from the prisoner of war camp at Cowra. A Hanafunda pack of cards consists of 48 cards divided into 12 suits of four cards, each representing a month of the year. The cards are not numbered but are illustrated with motifs such as plants, trees, mountains, animals or the moon. Some motifs are peculiar to particular regions of Japan. The cards in each suit may be identical or may be variations on the motif selected for a particular month. Hanafunda was originally a simple card matching game but in the twentieth century became a serious gambling game. There are a number of variations of the game but it is usually played by two or four players and resembles the western game of 'Rummy'. The four cards in each suit may be assigned point values - 1,5,10 or 20 - but the aim is still to match cards to make pairs or runs, and to accumulate the maximum possible 88 points. Hanafunda is sometimes called '88' for this reason.