Agog About Pogs -- For Kids And Collectors, Old-Style Bottle Caps Are Right At The Center Of An All-New Craze

The cardboard caps that once sealed milk bottles are back. But this time it's without the milk or the bottle.

These poker-chip sized discs are sold, collected, traded, played with like tiddly-winks or used as business cards. They promote everything from gasoline to ice cream to churches.

Commonly called pogs for the caps from a passion fruit-orange-guava juice drink sold by Maui's Haleakala Dairy, the decorative disks are boosting a sagging economy in Hawaii, where the fad began, and now they're hitting Washington.

A popular woman

Every day dozens of youngsters visit the "Pog Lady," a k a Sandi Rogers-Osterloh of Shoreline, to buy the latest, coolest milk caps.

"I collected baseball cards, but those have gone kind of out of style," says Jonathan Fox, 11, a recent pog convert who dragged his mother to Rogers-Osterloh's basement, the home of Milkcaps Central.

Tables there are covered with more than 250 designs, including dinosaurs, snakes, politicians, cartoon characters, sports teams and company logos.

The Sonics, Ken Griffey Jr., even President Clinton are immortalized on a pog.

"I have to say I like the art caps the most," Jonathan says. "They have a lot of foil on them and really sparkle."

Being able to play with pogs makes them better than trading cards, kids say.

They stack their pogs and take turns slamming a specially designed "hitter" or "slammer" on the stack. The player gets to keep

whichever pogs flip over.

The game originated in Hawaii in the 1930s when there wasn't much money for toys. When bottled milk practically disappeared, so did the game.

About two years ago teacher Blossom Galbiso decided to reintroduce it at Oahu's Waialua Elementary School as a non-violent alternative to "sham battle," a form of dodge ball.

She bought several milk caps from the Haleakala Dairy, which had continued to use caps to promote its products. The game was a hit, with children favoring the red POG design and renaming the game and other milk caps after it.

Police popularize game

Last fall, the Honolulu Police Department's Drug Abuse Resistance Education program brought the game to almost every public and private school.

Now, there are pog tournaments, contests and fund-raisers. Companies, schools, museums and associations issue their own pogs. Prices range from a few cents to $100 for some original milk caps. The Royal Hawaiian Milk Cap Company two weeks ago began offering a limited edition, 24-karat gold set of four caps for $75. The company has already received 1,000 orders, including some from Seattle and San Francisco.

"This is really big," says Rogers-Osterloh, who started her pog business after moving back to Washington from Hawaii in January.

J.W. Smith of Bellevue also began spreading the word of pog when he moved back from Hawaii in April.

"I left a six-figure income in Hawaii to come do this," says Smith, who used to develop real estate. While working on in the islands, a vice president of the Bank of Hawaii made an office visit and left Smith with a bank pog.

"To this day, that guy's image sticks in my mind," Smith says. "It really hit me that this is a very remarkable marketing tool." Quirky business

Once back on the mainland, Smith wasn't sure how to approach his friend Daryl Davidson about starting their business, Maxim Inc.

"At first I was almost ashamed to tell him about it because it's so quirky. I didn't want him to think I was losing my mind," Smith says.

Now Davidson, a facilities project manager for Boeing, is convinced pogs will be bigger than Cabbage Patch dolls, Hula Hoops or Mr. Potato Head.

Smith and Davidson want to package the game and distribute it, wholesale to mainland pog dealers and develop their own pog line. The company is working on a licensing agreement with Washington State University and the University of Washington for pog rights.

Rogers-Osterloh's 11-year-old son, Zachary, first introduced pogs to his friends at school, and now mom gets calls from all over. Banned in Shoreline

The game was so popular at one Shoreline elementary school, the principal banned it because she thought it was gambling. Rogers-Osterloh went to the state Gambling Commission. She got the commissioners on the floor for a game of pogs and they wrote a letter saying they didn't think it was gambling.

"I think it's kind of addicting," says parent Sue Powers, as she watched her son, Ryan, play pogs in Rogers-Osterloh's backyard. "But it's better than watching television."

"It's healthy. And it's nice for (kids) to have something to do besides fight," says Mary Fox, Jonathan's mother. "The other thing I like about it is the girls and boys play together and there's very few recess things they do together."

It's only a matter of time before Washingtonians get as pog wild as Hawaiians, say promoters.

The craze has already infiltrated the Fox family before they knew it. First Jonathan bought a few. Then Mary Fox bought some "cute dinosaurs" for her 4-year-old daughter. This time, mom bought a four-piece set of Coke pogs for $5. "We don't even drink Coke," she says.