[JuFiN] My collection.

[JuFiN]

I have been collecting cards for many years but have only really taken it seriously the last 6 months or so. My collection started out with mostly souvenir decks from my travels and a handful of bicycles to play with. Because of the way the bicycles stood out in quality compared to the average souvenir deck, I am a huge fan of bicycle decks in general. Now that I have started taking collecting more seriously and started picking up some of the newer decks from ellusionist, theory 11 and various other creators on kickstarter I feel a need to share this collection with people who might really appreciate it. I think ill share three decks per post, one older "antique" deck (many of which I find going to estate sales, a new hobby of mine), one newer deck that im sure you will all have heard of, and one misc deck that maybe you guys havent heard of, or is a cool brand / souvenir deck or maybe a deck that isnt standard playing cards at all, we will see.

I will start with an antique. One of my most cherished decks, an old Belgian deck from the Stella Artois beer company. My grandfather worked for Stella and just last christmas my grandmother actually gave me this deck. It has standard Belgian faces (Jack = V Queen = D King = R Ace = 1) and is quite old. Im not sure how old exactly as im not aware of any way to date cards other than tax stamps and USPCC ace of spades codes and this has neither.

"Stella Artois" Whist by Stella Artois. Printer unknown



WHIST a popular Belgian trick taking game somewhat similar to Bridge.


Box flap is broken off, opens from the side.


The cards are closer to Bridge size than standard Poker.



My second deck will be the miscellaneous deck of the day. I found this deck in a "hip" clothing store in Brooklyn NY. All the faces are custom as well as all the aces and it has some cool extra cards. I havent seen it anywhere on these forums so maybe it will be new to you guys!

"Quality Playing Cards" by Misc Goods Co. Printed by USPCC

Full Foil Tuck


"Cheaters Beware"






And finally I have a deck released by Theory 11 that im sure wont be new to most of you. I havent seen it mentioned in the forums at all and I think it deserves some time in the spotlight because its one of my favorite new decks. Grabbed it in Barnes and Nobles just last week (They seem to be selling a lot of Theory 11 decks now). The custom faces are some of my favorite ever and I think they are very well done.

"Animal Kingdom" by Hatch Design, Printed by USPCC.





Printed interior to the box


The pips are non symetrical and a bit "wobbly" adding to the fun carefree feel of the deck as a whole. Each suit represents a different ecosystem as shown by the face cards, Grasslands, Jungle, Arctic and Swamp.


Thats all for today thanks for checking it out! Any feed back on my collection or how I am presenting the cards is much appreciated!

Cheers!

[4.of.Clubs]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing!

[Jock1971]

Nice start to your thread
the mixture of old and modern decks gets a thumbs up from me as i enjoy both.
Has the Stella Artois deck have any jokers? may be able to pin point a maker from them (The indices and suit symbols look like Carta Mundi but can`t be 100% sure).
Thanks for sharing and i hope to see more of your collection

[shermjack]

Nice decks JufIN! The Stella deck is stellar! Look forward to seeing more of your decks!

[JuFiN]

Hello again! Thanks for the awesome feedback.

I did some googling on the stella deck and it seems to be from 1940-1960. Although it has no jokers my guess would be cartamundi as well because thats the company that prints most decks I have used in belgium .

Anyway ima jump right in to the next installment of my collection!

I will start out with a modern deck that I picked up from the ellusionist summer sale. Its a great deck that I had been eyeing for a long time so when it went on sale I had to get it.

"Sultan Republic Treasury" by Ellusionist.



Has a little bit of really well placed embossing on the tuck.



I really like the back design on these, also note the interior of the tuck map, a very cool touch!



Finally, the best part for me are the custom red pips!




Now with that deck that you all probably already know out of the way, let me show you something new!

For my "misc" deck of the day I have a cool Italian deck. This is a deck I came across in a paper store called "Signum" in Firenze. I think they printed/cut it themselves as the stock is unlike anything I have seen.

"Varie Figvre Gorbi di lacopo Callot" by Signum, Printed by Signum.

The "tuck" is simply a piece of thick black paper wrapped around the deck and tied on with a string.


The Cards were much thicker than any I have seen. (This is next to the Sultan deck)


The back image is printed on sideways and is one way, which is a bit annoying from an actual usability standpoint. it is a very humorous and well drawn image though.


Finally, the card faces are also printed on sideways, it has 13 different images that repeat on all the suits.


Overall I love the "homemade" feel of the deck, as well as the art style. But the sideways printing makes the deck pretty unusable.

Finally I have a really cool antique!

This deck I found in an estate sale of a WW2 Veteran. It dates from Dec 6, 1943 and I believe was given to soldiers to use in there down time during the war. Half of the tuck is very darkened from age as you will see.

"Mohawk" by Mohawk Printed by The NY Consolidated Card CO.

Darkened half of the tuck reads "Gift of the American Red Cross. NOT TO BE SOLD"


It reads "The NY Consolidated Card CO." along the bottom of the tuck.


The cards are in great condition, although they are a bit stiff and do stick when trying to handle. But I don't intend to ever use my antique decks for play or handling anyway.


Includes a full deck with both jokers! Obviously pretty standard faces. Also get to see the other side of the tuck here which reads, "For Use of U.S. Government Permit No. 1 Dec. 6, 1943"


Thats certainly one of my best estate sale finds and I got it for just 50 cents!

Anyway, thats all for now! Ill be away all next week so its going to be a while for the next update, but don't worry more cool decks still to come!

Cheers!

[Jock1971]

Very cool cards

[ecNate]

That Signum one is pretty sweet!

[JuFiN]

Hello again! been a while since my last post, but I think I got a fun one this time.

Rather than post another three decks, I want to show you guys some ways of displaying my cards that I set up this week.

The first display I set up is just a long narrow piece of wood I found on the street. I wasnt sure how to go about attaching it to the wall so I used some duct tape with tacs through it to hold it up over my closet door.



As for the actual decks, the "theme" of this row of cards was pairs / sets of cards (red + blue mostly)

I liked the idea for that display although the duct tape was a little ghetto. While keeping my eyes open for more things to use to display I came across a whole pile of large cardboard tubes on the street. (they were used to transport long light bulbs for the store being renovated across the street).

Using these tubes I set up a bunch more "display shelves"



First a bunch of Bicycles in different colors / charity decks / alternate backs.



More Bicycle branded decks in order somewhat by color of the tuck. Sorry about the glare in this picture.



Two more here. Top one is more USPCC (mostly) non-Bicycle Brand decks. Bottom one is a series of shows, comics, brands etc. With various printers.



A semi random collection of non Bicycle decks. Some Cartimundi some Piatnik, Mavericks, Hoyle and more brands/souvenir decks.

Thats all the "shelves" so far (not for lack of decks to fill them...) but I plan to put up atleast one more although Ill have to find more things to put them on.

With that I get to my final display. This is a display case I bought at a local art supply store for around $30. I filled it with some of my favorite / most valuable decks (and a bunch of random mini decks to fill the extra space at the top. The display is 16"x20" and I got the idea from this Thread but I kinda skipped the step where I add shelves to it, hence the extra space at the top for mini decks.





That just about all for today! Hope you liked my budget displays .
How do you guys store/display your decks? I've got many more decks to display so I'm always curious about more options!

Thanks for looking.

[Jock1971]

Woah your very brave ...those cardboard tubes look bendy ...how did you attach them to the wall ?

[JuFiN]

Long time no see! I recently got back from close to two months in Italy and wanted to share some cards I got there!
I also stopped in Paris and grabbed a Grimaud deck in the airport during my layover which is actually really nice and handles a lot like Cartamundi's B9 finish cards do.
Some of the cards got beat up in travel but here it is!



In Italy they don't use regular poker cards as much but rather have what I call Briscola decks because Briscola is one of the main games played with them. They are produced by two companies mainly, Dal Negro and Modiano. Both are high quality cards but I happened to already own one Modiano deck so that was the brand I chose to attempt to collect a full set of. Next time I go I think I will try to gather up all the Dal Negro but I wanted to avoid spending too much so I limited myself for the most part to one brand. It seems based on the people I talked to and played with, Dal Negro is actually the more highly regarded brand, but by the time I figured that out I had already gathered quite a number of Modianos.

They contain 40 cards, Ace - 7 , Knave, Horseman/Queen and King. And have no indices. This lack of indices isn't such a problem though because the most popular games never involve having more than 3 cards in hand at any time and the number of symbols never gets high enough that you cant easily see what number a card is at a glance. They often also come with two extra cards explaining the rules of Briscola and Scopa.

Each region of Italy has their own decks with a total of 15 regions that can be broken into 4 sections.

Northern Italy, has suits of Swords, Clubs, Coins, Cups.
This includes 5 decks or regions: Bergamasche, Triestine, Bresciane, Trevigiane and Belot.
They proved to be the hardest decks to find as I was only able to find two of the 5 decks! I think this is because they seem to be the least popular due to the art style being harder to read.

Spanish Cards, has suits of Swords, Clubs, Coins, Cups.
This includes 5 Regions: Napoletane, Siciliane, Romagnole, Piacentine and Sarde.
These were the most popular and easy to find including finding multiple different versions of some individual regions. I was able to find atleast one version of each .
They were also the only cards I ever saw in use and the only cards I used when playing games with actual Italians (mostly Briscola) while there (Piacentine cards to be specific).

French Cards, has suits Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts. (still 40 card indexless decks though).
This includes 4 regions: Genovesi, Toscane, Lombarde, Piamontesi.
These were also pretty easy to find particularly the Toscane was very prevalent. I managed to find all of them but never saw them in use.

German Cards, Has suits Bells, Acorns, Leaves, Hearts.
This includes one regions! Salzburger.
A very cool deck that actually has different numbers, 2, 5 6 7 8 9 10 Over Under and King. I was able to find it but only under the Dal Negro Brand.

There is also a Tarot deck and a mini poker deck in the image that I got as well there were plenty of normal sized poker decks but I find the box art to be unappealing and I was looking for regional decks pretty exclusively while there so I didnt get any. (except the one Grimaud in France of course)

I will make a new post for each region in the coming days going into more detail about each deck and their differences as the artwork is different from region to region even within each category. For now here is a sneak peak of one deck from the Northern, French and Spanish regions in that order to give a general sense of the differences. You will have to wait to see the Salzburger deck for when I make the post on that region (which will probably also cover the Tarocco deck as otherwise there wont be much to cover!)

[JuFiN]

Well Today ill show the Spanish inspired decks!

The key thing that sets Spanish cards apart from Northern italian cards despite having the same suits is the fact that the swords are straight (except aces) and the clubs are wooden clubs as opposed to the ceremonial clubs of the Northern cards.

Ill show you the 3 of clubs, ace of swords and coins, king (re), cavalier (cavallo) and jack (fante) of coins and the seven of cups + the card back for each deck to try and give a sense of the overall artwork of the deck.

The first deck and the most common of all the decks to see, at least in the areas I was traveling, was the Napoletane deck, easily identified by its iconic double headed eagle for the Ace of coins. The cards have a pretty simple color scheme and are extremely easy to read very little in the way of extra stuff on the cards that isn't relevant to identifying the card. They even go so far as to have the floor for all court cards of one suit be the same color, the deck was clearly made to maximize ease of play.


The Second deck is the Piacentine it maintains a similar color scheme but adds in a bit more of an artistic touch with some more shading and intricate use of the color. But again there is very little unnecessary fluff an is another favorite for play due to easy legibility. This deck brings two way courts to further assist in that ease of play. The cards are notably long and narrow in shape with helps again when trying to read the cards when holding them in hand during play as you can make out more of the image on the card when fanning which helps overcome the lack of indices in the cards. (although most popular games never involve having more than 3 cards in hand at any one time with the notable exception of tressette which has an initial hand size of 10).


Continuing in order of popularity, (measured by how many Tabacchis sold the deck, interesting fact that these decks are all mainly sold in the "tobacco" or cigarette stores due to the fact that cards like cigarettes used to be taxed and these stores sell the taxed goods) we have the Siciliane deck. Which although it uses all the same colors as the previous decks feels like its color palette is much more limited due to the fact that individual cards rarely use more than 3 colors. This deck is pretty much functionally the same as the Napoletane deck in terms of card size (similar to bridge) and use of one way courts and the like. But it does add in little vignettes throughout the cards that serve no purpose other than to add a nice artistic touch.


Next is the Romagnole deck. This deck sticks to the general formula as the Napoletane deck but has a lot more fun with the use of color. Making individual swords and clubs different colors and just generally making wacky choices with the use of color throughout. A fun deck for sure similar in size to a poker deck.


Finally Sarde. If in Napoletane every decision was based on easy of legibility above all else, Sarde put artwork above all else. Using intricate backgrounds, Making the figures and look more 3D and "real", adding grape vines and goat heads to the solid gold cups and leaves for the clubs. Overall a very beautiful looking deck. Which makes it all the more interesting that it is the only Spanish deck to have added indices! Someone designing this deck had play-ability in mind. It also has a very standard poker like back with no intricate design work. Another notable thing is that it breaks away from a lot of conventions that you see across the other decks an example you see here is that the clubs in the three of clubs are not bundled together.


One more image to compare the card and box sizes across the decks as that is another aspect that sets these cards apart from one another, I included a bicycle deck for scale.


Til next time!

[shimmering]

Nice .... good to see this side-by-side comparison!

[dazzleguts]

Great posting!
I have most of a deck of Modiano Briscola cards I found in a thrift store and this is the back.

Do any of your decks have the same back as mine?

[JuFiN]

That is a Trevigiane deck from Northern Italy! I have the deck, but mine does have a different back which makes me think the back design isn't necessarily an identifying factor for which deck it is, mine also has the long narrow shape which means so far my theory that the card size and shape is an identifying factor. The one thing I am sure of is that the artwork specifically the ace of coins can be used to identify a deck and I have that same ace on my Trevigiane deck.

Your back is much more beautiful than mine which has a two way patterned back of sorts. Ill be posting pictures of it today or tomorrow when I make my post about Northern and German decks.

Thanks for sharing that picture, very cool.

[dazzleguts]

Modiano started using the back I have in the 1970s, according to WOPC, so they may have stopped using it by now. 2-way backs are always preferred for playing.

http://www.wopc.co.uk/italy/venetian

Since I can't read the italian directions I looked up Briscola on Board Game Geek. They have intructions and a great discussion of the best cards to use. Would love to play it. Did you get to play Briscola while in Italy?

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/784715 ... lay-review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's a beautiful old deck I came across. Wish they showed the back:

http://www.altacarta.com/english/collec ... enete.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Looking forward to seeing the Northern and German decks. As shimmering said, really nice having the direct comparisons.

[JuFiN]

Modiano started using the back I have in the 1970s, according to WOPC, so they may have stopped using it by now. 2-way backs are always preferred for playing.

http://www.wopc.co.uk/italy/venetian

Since I can't read the italian directions I looked up Briscola on Board Game Geek. They have intructions and a great discussion of the best cards to use. Would love to play it. Did you get to play Briscola while in Italy?

Some really cool decks on WOPC, does your deck have that joker shown for the Modiano Trevigiane deck? My decks don't have any jokers!

I was able to play quite a bit of Briscola actually, I was visiting my girlfriends family and played Briscola with her, her grandmother and her uncle most nights actually. Given that they dont really speak English and I don't speak Italian it was one of the few ways we could really spend time together without the language barrier being an issue. Its a game played 2v2 that allows some communication between teammates so my girlfriend and I would be a team against them English vs Italian, with my girlfriend as a spy able to understand the italian comms of the other team (although they used that to "bluff" us more than once). We always used the Piacentine deck as that is the deck her family owns and is used to. I lost more than I won but I did win enough to not be embarassed, I recommend trying to play it at some point.

Anyway its time for some Northern cards. As I mentioned before this category of cards was the hardest to find for me and I only managed to actually get my hands on two of the five decks. I could of course order the others online but I enjoy the thrill of the hunt to find them out in the real world! The northern decks have the same suits as the "spanish" ones with the key difference being that the swords are curved and the clubs are ceremonial clubs and atleast in the two decks I have, the coins are two tone. I decided to add two more cards for the displays of these decks, the 6 of swords and clubs to illustrate the difficulty that these suits cause for ease of play in terms of telling the two apart and just figuring out what number they are supposed to be (although both the decks I will show do have number indices).

(http://www.modianocards.com/italian-playing-cards" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

First the previously mentioned Trevigiane. The color scheme of this deck is pretty much the same yellow red and blue for all cards of all suits. The courts are two way and there are indices to ease play a little. Through out there are a few extra illustrations as you see on the 6 and Ace of swords.



And the Triestine. This deck adds on top of the indices actual numbers incorporated into all the sword and club cards to help make them quickly readable and writes out what the court cards are which ironically makes the two way court cards technically one way. Im hesitant to make any broad claims about northern decks in general from just these two decks I own, but you can immediately see many similarities, most notably the ace of swords with its roosters on the bottom and suns at the top.



Because I only have the two northern decks I figure this is a good post to include the single German deck. I wasn't able to find it under the Modiano brand but couldn't resist picking it up when I found a Dal Negro version. (I will probably try to collect all the Dal Negros next year when I head back to Italy anyway).

The deck is the Salzburger deck and as mentioned before has completely different suits, courts, and number values. I tried to keep the choice of cards to show atleast similar to that of the other deck though. This deck is very nice and is covered with extra little illustrations at the bottom of the card often of villagers going about there lives, fishing, hunting or just hanging out. There are no aces, but the twos are used in a similar way, and the 6 of Bells is known as the Weli and is often used as a wild card. The Over or "Unter" knave simply has the suit symbol literally under him while the Over or Ober Knave has it above him!



You can read a bit more about the german deck on wikipedia if interested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_playing_cards" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Finally the decks side by side for a sense of card size with bicycle deck for scale:


Next and last post on the topic will be French cards with classic poker suits which I think you guys will like a lot.

[JuFiN]

Finally we have the 4 french decks. I managed to find all four relatively easily but Toscane was by far the most common deck of these four to see.

These all have the classic Hearts, Diamond, Clubs, Spades pips and introduce the Queen to replace the Horseman but still have the Briscola 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,J,Q,K numbers.
The conversion for suits seems to be Coins = Diamonds (money), Clubs = Clubs, Spades = Swords, Hearts = Cups (A love of drink perhaps?).

Ill be showing the same selection of cards as with the previous decks although the artwork on the number cards is notably less interesting and more just standard pip layout. The one difference is I'll show the Ace of Hearts instead of Coins/Diamonds as that is the one that has the ad copy.

First ill show Toscane as that is the most common. It has one way courts that use the same color scheme of a classic bike deck with red, blue and yellow but adds a little green here and there. It is actually the only one of the "French" decks to have one way courts which might be why it is so popular in a region where the Napoletane deck is the most common deck because this deck would be the most one to one equivalent. The cards themselves are close to poker size but a bit slimmer and possibly just a tiny bit shorter as well.



Next lets look at the Lombarde. This is another deck with very long thin cards. It has a very intricate back design and two way courts with a lot of facial hair on jacks and kings alike. The courts also feature the occasional cute unnecessary detail like the bird on the King of Diamonds. These are also the only cards on the French set that have borders on the faces of all the cards not just the courts. The color scheme of the courts is similar to Toscane but with notably more green.



Next up Piamontesi. These are little bridge size cards that come in a box much to large for them causing them to rattle and the box to dent pretty easily. The jacks all hold Axes and have long flowing hair. The Queens all hold Flowers except the Queen of spades who has a fan. And the Kings all have some form of weapon. Almost all the courts incorporate their suit sign in the pattern of their clothes. The Aces all have intricate little borders except the Ace of hearts which just has the generic ad copy.



Finally we have the Genovesi. The courts of this deck are almost identical to many of the other standard poker decks I own out of Europe (See the Stella deck in my first post in this thread). A lot of green red and gold but the green stands out. If you look closely this is actually the third deck in a row with a chicken (or bird) featured on the King of Diamonds. The King of diamonds is also the only one without hands showing and thus not holding anything. The cards are again slightly smaller but pretty much poker size.



And lastly the lineup compared to a Bicycle deck. Worth pointing out at this point the fact that all the back designs have a border for these four decks.



That's all for Italian decks unless I find the missing Northern decks next time I go. Next time ill show some Bicycle branded things other than cards that I have collected Already took the pictures for that one so it shouldn't be as long a wait.

[JuFiN]

Bicycle Branded non-card things! Sometimes with bicycle cards or decks for scale.

Dice




Found at wallgreens. As you can see the quality of the dice isn't great actually. USPCC registration issues go further than just the backs of cards!

BlackJack Electronic game.





Havent actually tried to play it but I found it in a thrift shop and thought it was neat.

Poker Chips:





Ive actually seen two different types of poker chips with the bicycle brand, most often I see cheap plastic ones which are such low quality even a Bike enthusiast like me doesnt buy them, but these are nice high quality heavy feeling clay ones.

Po-Ke-No sheets:







One full sheet set with the ace of spades reading "Little Duke No 24" and one sheet from a set where the ace reads "Bee and Bicycle" which I found quite interesting. Po-Ke-No is like a combination poker and bingo card game. I found it particularly interesting the use of more European feeling courts as opposed to classic bicycle court cards.

Dominos:









A very cool domino set with a nice box with etched bicycle design on the glass top. The cardboard box is banged up but the contents are in mint condition, dominoes even still wrapped in plastic.

Those are some bicycle branded non card things of mine! It's easily my favorite brand of cards, although I wouldn't say I am a completionist collector of bicycle decks given how many low quality bicycle designs are floating around the bicycle brand still manages to increase the appeal of a deck of cards to me. Any other bicycle fanatics have bicycle branded things other than decks of cards?

[STLBluesNut]

Those dominoes are pretty neat. Great find.

Sent from my Galaxy 8 using Tapatalk

[JuFiN]

It took a while but I have finally come into possession of another deck cool and unique enough to feel it worth sharing.

This deck is from a trip to Norway! It appears to be printed in Germany and handles quite well.



It is an art deck from an artist named Rosina Wachtmeister.



As you can see the cards are bridge sized and organized in such a way that the Jokers divide the 7-10 from the rest of the deck making it easy to separate the 40 cards needed for many regional games.



The faces are all custom and have a magnificent gold foil on them. It almost looks/feels like the gold was painted on separately from the rest of the printing process.



It has a smooth finish (except for the gold parts that are slightly textured) and the cards are plastic but they faro shuffle and fan beautifully.



Excuse the blurry picture, my phone is a few generations behind but this was the closest I could come in my pictures to really showing how stunning the gold is.

Mine were purchased in Norway but I believe the following to be a link to the artists website where they are for sale for those interested (not sure where they will ship):
https://www.rosina-wachtmeister-shop.de ... Cards.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Räpylätassu]

Please open a thread for that Rosina Wachtmeister Cat deck, it's great!!

Edit: Nevermind, opened it myself. It's so nice that it deserves to be on the main page right away. Made sure to give you the spotlight though for finding it, pictures and information.

[JuFiN]

Thirdway Industries complete collection.

Another one showing off how I display my cards, this time in a new home on some proper shelves. This time fully dedicated to an (almost, more on that later) complete Thirdway Industries Collection!

I got these little hanging shelves off amazon and installed a bunch in my home office to really give the Thirdway Collection a proper home. I have a large card collection at this point but Giovanni is the only artist I have remained consistently a big enough fan of that I have maintained a full collection even in the last few years where my collecting has really slowed.

Around my Desk:

On the wall by the window:

On the back wall by the door:

For the most part its one shelf per series but for some smaller series I did combine.

More posts with closeups of each shelf coming soon. I may go into more detail on some of the more rare/extra stuff then but im sure you are all familiar with Giovanni already.

p.s. If anyone has the Omnia Pecunia Coin I'll pay good money for it.

[JuFiN]

Part 1 of closeups.

I'll start with the series that are sharing shelves together. These are the series that have fewer editions, had fewer extras or simply ended up on a slightly larger shelf to allow for more space. (or are not favored enough by me to dedicated a whole shelf to them).

I should note at this point that while I am a bit of a completionism I do not attempt to collect all extras (pins, uncuts, books etc.), just cards and decks.

I attempted to Date each series as well this will be based on whichever edition of the series came out first. If I do a good enough job maintaining this collection perhaps some day people will use thes posts as a source of everything Gio has produced, when I asked him for exactly that to verify the completeness of the collection he directed me to https://www.thirdwayindustries.com/series/ which is a great resource but not quite complete as you will see. I also gave some briefs thoughts that jumped to mind for each deck.

First up is a triple threat of Galaxia, Incubo and Poison

Incubo is an interesting deck, almost like a modern take on the Evil Deck in terms of art style (Ignoring the existance of the literal modern Evil deck). Generally I prefer his other art style but it is important to not get too repetative.

The highlight of Galaxia for me are the propaganda posters of the jokers. I think he was really able to have some fun creating this deck of cards.

Poison is a beautiful series that really shows off Gios ability to use metallic inks to there full potential. Again its the Jokers (as is often the case for thirdway decks) that take the place of the highlight of the decks.

Galaxia (2021):
- Galaxia Promessa
- Galaxia Altezza
- Galaxia Domina
- Galaxia Integra
- Galaxia Superba
- Galaxia Coin

Incubo (2023):
- Incubo Mezzanotte
- Incubo Divoramondo
- Incubo Lunapiena
- Book of Nightmares
Coin is in the mail, and decided against the pendant.

Poison (2022):
- Poison Aspis
- Poison Kingslayer
- Poison Belladonna
- Poison Coin

Next is the odd mix of Devotion, Memoria and Damokles.

The funny thing about the Devotion deck is there are no pictures of the faces online an I got it after the point in my collecting where I no longer open a deck unless I have a second copy... So I dont even know what the cards look like!

The underwhelming tuck cases of Damokles hide some of Giocannis best artwork, he really has mastered his style and shows it off here.

Memoria, similar to Damokles has more underwhelming tucks, atleast for the standard editions. Maybe its just me but the Heart shape being upside down makes the artwork hard to read. (And it is cool artwork).

Devotion (2022):
- Devotion Red
- Devotion Gold
No coin exists

Memoria (2022):
- Memoria Entropia
- Memoria Ancestrale
- Entropia Argentea
- Ancestrale Aurea
- Memoria Coin
- Memoria Booklet

Damokles (2023):
- Damokles Adamas
- Damokles Cuprum
- Damokles Opulentia
- Damokles Ruinae
- Gladius Lamnia (coin)
- Oxida Numisma (coin)

Next up is Fantasma + Egoism + Exquisite.

Many people may not know this but the EPCC deck "Exquisite" black deck was created in partnership with Giovanni, it has three different color foils on the back. Fun fact I suppose.

Fantasma of course has the innovative need for blacklight to even see the cards, a deck that really would only ever appeal to a true card collector.

The latest Fantasma KS has not yet been delivered so for now Fantasma shares a shelf with these other two.

Egoism is a series where Giovanni takes the classic courts and modifies them ever so slightly to fit his style. This devotion to sticking to the classic "rules" of playing cards (the suicide king, double sided courts etc) is something he does in all his decks that I really appreciate. In this case its much more close to standard and feels like his style doesnt get a chance to really shine through. That said it has a sick pair of jokers.

Fantasma(2023):
- Fantasma Tomb
- Fantasma Duplex
- Fantasma Spirit
Fantasma Basic in the mail.
- Fantasme Coin
- Horni Pin
- Branded GC Flashlight

Egoism(2021):
- Egoism Ivory
- Egoism Peacock
- Egoism Relic
- Egoism Rust

Exquisite (2017):
- Exquisite Fortuna / Black
- Exquisite Original / White (Not a partnership with Giovanni)

Heartless Tales.

Tales is a very cool series that showcases classic fairytales. It also has a much softer art style than we may be used to.

Heartless on the other hand is textbook Giovanni. It has the best pins but the lack of clear cut theme and the art style being more of the same kinda makes this deck disappear into the background for me.

Tales (2021):
- Heroic Tales
- Arcane Tales
- Wicked Tales
- Legendary Tales
- Charming Tales
- Tales Coin.

Heartless (2022):
- Heartless Abyss
- Heartless Elysium
- Heartless Nether
- Heartless Gehenna
- Me Warrior Pin
- Night Warriot Pin
- Serfina/Heartless Coin

Black Market + Apoteosi/Apocalisse

Black Market may be my least favorite Giovanni deck. I like the design and the faces being a spin on more standard stuff but the whole crypto type theme doesnt vibe for me and feels kinda cringe.

The Apoteosi/Apocalisse is a cool series in that it combines Giovannis desire to create a Good vs Evil series originating in his first independent deck to my knowledge (more on that one later). But it combines with his desire to create a more mythological setting that suits his most common art style very well.

Black Market (2021):
- Project BM
- BM Crypto
- BM Digital
- BM Nexus
- BM Mainframe

Apoteosi (2021):
- Apoteosi
- Eden On Earth
- Heavens Gift
- Apoteosi Coin

Apocalisse (2020):
- Apocalisse
- Wrath of God
- Hell's Dragon
- Apocalisse Coin
- Apocalisse Pin

Finally for the multi series shelves we have Italia and Idols. A much more reasonable pairing than the BM + Apocalisse to be sure.

Modern idols is part of the line of "Good vs Evil" or "Apocalisse vs Apoteosi" decks that Giovanni is so frequently one to create.

I imagine the Italy based Italia Divina line has a pretty limited audience but I for one am a fan of Italy and thus a fan of the decks.

Italia Divina(2020):
- Italia Radiosa
- Italia Segreta
- Italia Divina
- Italia Magica
- Moneta Italia (coin)

Modern Idols(2020):
- Modern Idols Fear
- Modern Idols Hope
- Endless Hope
- Extreme Fear
- Fear Coin
- Hope Coin
- Hope Sticker