Pogs

About

As of 2026, it's 35 years old.

Pogs exploded across playgrounds in 1991, a craze built on stacks of decorated cardboard discs you'd slam with a heavier 'slammer' to flip and win your opponent's pieces. The name comes from a Hawaiian juice — Passion-Orange-Guava — whose bottle caps kids originally played with.

For a few frenzied years they were everywhere, traded, hoarded, and gambled until schools started banning them for being basically playground gambling. Then, like all the best fads, they vanished almost overnight, leaving behind drawers full of suddenly worthless cardboard.

Collectible, competitive, and briefly contraband, Pogs are the cardboard-disc craze that conquered '90s recess and then disappeared without a trace.