A new family owned business in Whitefish is the first in the world to revive an iconic 1990s trading game.  

Even greater of a feat, the game can be played both digitally and physically, giving people of all ages and backgrounds a chance to feel like a kid again, whether it’s in Whitefish’s Depot Park or online.  

Kyler Frisbee opened SNUFFiE’S Collectibles, named after his dad, Snuff Frisbee, last month on Railway Street.  

“I think of it as a pop culture treasure trove,” Kyler said. “I just want to have a fun cultural place where the kids in Whitefish can come. Because when I grew up here, Stumptown [Snowboards] was the only cool place I could go.”  

“I’m excited for visitors from around the world to see it. I want to show that Montana is a cultural-forward place and show that we’re importing international goods.” 

Most of the shop contains 1990s memorabilia, games and collectibles, plus a few fun treats.  

One section does cater to a different generation, though. Snuff has a collection of hand built 1/8 scale model cars. 

The shop also has a laser engraver and a 3-D printer to make custom products.  

The grandest claim to fame for the shop is that it is the first verified POGs retailer in over 25 years. 

KYLER GREW UP in the Flathead Valley with three siblings. He was born in Korea and adopted by the Frisbees when he was 9 months old. 

“It took a lot to find that identity,” Kyler said. “Growing up here, nobody knows until you’re 5 or 6 years old, then the differences start to appear.”  

Kyler wasn’t cut out for college. When he was 20, he was a pro snowboarder, repping brands on Big Mountain.  

“I had some good mentors,” he said. “And they said, figure out how you want to live, and then go find something that gives you that.”  

So Kyler moved to Seattle, and later to Los Angeles. There was a stint of pizza delivery as he got into cryptocurrency, which landed him a job at Google.  

As his tech career blossomed, he led recruiting efforts at big name companies, built machine learning teams at Unity and worked with automaker Rivian.  

Today, he runs multiple blockchain companies. Among them is a digital version of the game POGs.  

POGs are small rectangular cardboard disks, resembling coins just over an inch in diameter, with unique 1990s style designs on them.  

“The idea with the game, you would bring your POGs, I would bring mine,” said Kyler, who’s been collecting since he was a kid.  

“Stack ‘em up, hit ‘em with a slammer, and whatever flips over, you get to keep.”  

The game in older days was played with milk caps. It possibly has roots in the 17th-century Japanese game Menko, which was possibly brought to Hawaii in the 1920s. Milk caps was later revived as POGs at a school in O’ahu in the 1990s. The name POGs represents the bottle caps of passionfruit, orange and guava juices.  

From there, POGs spread quickly across the globe, gathering over 200 million collectors as it partnered with brands like McDonald’s, Pokemon, Power Rangers and Barbie.  

On the back of the disk, there’s a number plus a color indicating how rare it is. Just like Pokemon packs, the rarer the POG, the more it's worth. 

POGs reached a peak and perhaps became too popular, with many knockoffs. Then around 2000, the price of cardboard skyrocketed, and POGs dropped off the radar quickly.  

But now, Kyler is reviving the game, first digitally and now physically.  

Essentially, he “created this collection of NFTs, drew it with my dog, and then named it after my dad,” he said.  

NFTs are non-fungible tokens, which are like digital collectibles, holding a unique asset and certifying authenticity. POGs come from NFTs.  

The digital version has its own cryptocurrency, POGCOIN. Like other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, there’s an initial buy-in, and then you can trade and win POGCOINS through games and quests. The game can still be played for free, though. 

Kyler traveled to 15 countries for tech work last year but is now expecting a baby, making it an especially perfect year to ground the digital POGs.  

It was time to bring the cardboard back.  

“We needed something physical,” he said. “So we’re the first authorized POGs retailer in over 25 years, in the world.” 

One fun connection to the physical world: If you burn a certain rare coin in the digital world, you can pick up a physical version at the shop in Whitefish instead, or have it shipped to you.  

Kyler hopes this will make Whitefish the first hub for another global phenomenon. He’s currently working on a mobile application and has a launch in the Philippines planned. 

BEHIND ALL THIS, holding it down in the physical shop, is Snuff, the so-called “mascot.”  

The Frisbee family has deep history in Northwest Montana. Snuff’s great-grandfather was Joseph Sherburne, the namesake of Glacier National Park’s Lake Sherburne.  

Sherburne, “Ole Joe” opened a trading post called Sherburne Mercantile Post in Browning in the spring of 1896, which grew to become an economic and social hub.  

Snuff’s father was a lawyer in Cut Bank. Snuff moved to Whitefish and got into the brokerage business and retired about two years ago.  

“I know nothing about the collectible end of things, but it’s fun to watch,” Snuff said.  

SNUFFiE’s is hosting a community trading night on Friday, Jan. 30, from 5 – 7 p.m. at the shop located at 525 Railway Street.