39. TEKS: Philippine Collectible Cards

Back in the '60s and '50s, Filipino kids spent their precious centavos collecting "teks" cards, the local equivalent of American trading cards. These "teks", available at the corner sari-sari store, showed hand-drawn Filipino or American superheroes (Superman, Mandrake the Magician, Batman, etc.). Others featured running story series (such as the one shown here, "Master Kung Fu") that looked like panels of a comic book when put in a correct sequence.

These cheap cards, printed on cardboard, were numbered so that a whole collection could be assembled--to be traded, swapped or kept as childhood treasures in shoeboxes. One could also accumulate "teks" by playing a toss-up games with friends, derived from the traditional "cara y cruz" rules. "Teks" have all but disappeared in the growing-up years of Pinoy kids, being replaced with fancier and more expensive Pokemon Cards, NBA basketball cards and gaming character cards that kids now stash away in binders, to be seen and not played. So unlike our own "teks" that you can hold, shuffle, flip, toss in the air--and still love afterwards. Kids collect cards--not thinking about return of investment, but just plain fun.