Mayor of Japan’s Hyogo Pref. Town Plans to Present Donald Trump with Solid Gold Playing Cards

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:45 JST, January 24, 2025

KOBE — The mayor of Sanda, Hyogo Prefecture, plans to gift U.S. President Donald Trump a deck of solid gold playing cards to celebrate his inauguration.

The gold deck of cards is one of the gifts available from the city under the furusato nozei hometown tax donation program.

Mayor Katsuya Tamura is considering purchasing the gift for Trump with his own money rather than using the city’s budget, he said Thursday. He expects the present to have “an explosive advertising effect.”

The gold cards, which are made at Mitsubishi Materials Corp.’s Sanda plant, measure 89 millimeters long, 58 millimeters wide and 7 micrometers thick.

Last September, the city set the donation amount for receiving the gift at ¥7.77 million, and received two orders in December.

Tamura said at a press conference on Thursday he came up with the idea of gifting Trump the cards from the president’s name. Playing cards are called “trump” in Japanese.

Though Tamura has no direct channel for conveying his gift, he said “It’s worth a short.”

The decks of cards, which are produced for furusato nozei gifts, are not for sale to the general public.

“I’m thinking of buying them with my pocket money,” Tamura said. It would cost more than ¥2 million to actually purchase the cards.