POGs in North America, Tazos in Europe and the UK. They’re the same thing; usually a photo or drawing on a small cardboard disc used for a game. The object of the game is to collect as many of your opponent’s discs as possible. It’s actually a throw-back from a game played during the Depression with milk caps. You placed your caps in a stack, threw a shooter or “slammer” into the stack. Whichever caps landed face up, you kept.
However, if the discs represent some cultural phenomenon (oh, say like, Star Wars, for example) they were more likely to never be used in a game, but rather kept in binders as collectibles.
POGs were all the rage a few years ago. It’s rebirth came in 1991, when a teacher in Hawaii remembered playing the game as a child, but used the caps from passion fruit, orange and guava juices (POG for short) instead of milk caps. After that, many manufacturers came out with all kinds of sets depicting everything from cartoons to movie icons.
Star Wars POGs arrived on the scene shortly after and Canadian sets of POGs had plastic “slammers” depicting the major characters in the series. In the U.S., a set of 20 came inside Doritos bags in 1997 for the Special Edition and had “photo changing” POGs … two images on each one. I know I bought a lot of these while on a business trip in the US in 1997…I must have looked like a nut, buying out the store, just to get a complete set (and no, I never did get them all….but I sure had a lots of chips that trip).
Here’s an auction for an uncut sheet of POGs…certainly a unique item!
STAR WARS TAZO / POGS UNCUT SHEET 160437
