[atzenhofer] Some cards from the collection

[atzenhofer]

From time to time I'll post a few decks here, the theme is mixed and contains a bit of everything from ~1870 to ~2000s.
The main focus is on antique/vintage non standard front designs and artwork as well as old advertising backs.

Starting with this surrealistic Artwork from Taro Okamoto (* 1911 - † 1996). A vibrant colored deck with a lot to discover, designed in 1977

[brownsl]

This is a deck I have been wanting to get for a long while now. Nice deck!

[acetofive]

Excellent. Looking forward to your posts.

[GandalfPC]

I grabbed a couple of these decks loose from zenmarket a ways back, took a peek but didn’t spot any at the moment - found this post on reddit with the full monte…

[atzenhofer]

Cartoon style art by Antonio Mingote (* 1919 - † 2012)
Design inspired by his comic series(?) published under the name "Myr Ediciones"
Printed by Fournier in 1968 with red and blue boxes/backs.
A deck with spanish suits was also released in 1968

[atzenhofer]

Die Spielkarte der feinen Welt, translated literally: "The playing card of the fine world" by F.A. Lattmann in Goslar, 1923

Wonderful Art Nouveau design, thankfully with OBox.

Another variant of the QoD is known and shown here:
https://www.wopc.co.uk/germany/lattmann/der-feinen-welt

[acetofive]

I love that Jack of Clubs. Nice detail with the pipe.

[atzenhofer]

A little late but here are three antique postcards wishing a happy new year with playing card motives.
First one was sent in 1910, second one in 1928 and the third one is still unused, likely printed around 1925.

Just a small selection of a tremendous amount of postcards that were printed with card motives

[atzenhofer]

Besides the classic playing cards used for Poker, Skat, Bridge etc. sometimes cards for different games also get stuck in my collection.

Here is a rather rare example, a quartets deck from Emil Oppenheimer & Ignatz Sulzbacher, founded 1883 in Nuremberg, Germany.
The title translates to "Newest Quartets" and includes motifs from all sectors of life, eg. ships, electricity, cars, animals etc.
What makes this deck even more historicaly interesting and important is the writing on the bottom of the cards, a unique German font, the "Sütterlinschrift"
It was introduced to the education system around 1915 in Prussia and banned again by the "Normalschrifterlass" (transl. "Normal writing decree") around 1941 (including other fonts). It was banned based on the fact that no one besides Germans could read it. That didn't suit the rising but already soon falling "World empire"

The company Oppenheimer & Sulzbacher was affected by the Aryanization because both families were Jewish. After both Emil and Ignatz died, their children Sigmund Oppenheimer and Jenny Sulzbacher ran the business since then. After the seizing in 1938 Jenny was most likely brought to Theresienstadt, where she was killed in 1944.
Sigmund was also arrested, but through the brave intervention of his wife, he was able to get an exit visa, probably only because he served in the German army long before the Third Reich existed. They settled in England where S. Oppenheimer Ltd. was incorporated in 1939. It remained a wholesaler buying in goods. The Company went on later to supply school items like pencil cases and geometry sets even going in for small pocket money toys. In the early 1970s Sigmund and his partner Ludwig Goldsmith created The Playwrite Group Plc.

Partial source and further information: https://www.wopc.co.uk/games/globe-brand/

[Honeybee]

Thanks atz - a front runner for post of the year

Tell us about the name atzenhofer? Is it simply a family name or does it have other significance?
I see atz means back in Basque

[atzenhofer]

Thanks!

The name just got stuck in my head when I was a kid. We often drove by a company called "Atzenhofer" and for me it just was the funkiest name I ever heard of. Without a deeper meaning I began using variations of it for nicknames in games or e-mail adresses. Soon it became my go-to option when choosing a username somewhere and it still is today.

[acetofive]

I love these kinds of cards. Great post.

[atzenhofer]

The "Schwerdter-Karte", a variant from C.L. Wüst in Frankfurt, Germany.

A deck without much info on it. It was introduced around 1900 and there is also a version without indices: http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks07/d05467/d05467.htm
This is one of the most beautiful impressions of the "Schwerdter-Karte" ever produced in my opinion.

Interestingly the number of indices switches between one, two and three on the cards. A hidden clue which I can't explain further is a number in the bottom left corner on the king of acorns. At first, I assumed it might be a consecutive number for the number of decks produced. That theory crumbled into pieces when I learned about at least three decks with the same number (3890). The number being a design number also seems to be a false theory because there are definitely other numbers out there (see the deck on WWPCM). Maybe some sort of date code?

[atzenhofer]

Here comes the back design, box front and a side part of it

[atzenhofer]

Some intersting advertisement backs, all ~ pre 1950. A few also have custom face cards which will follow in future posts.

______Cigarettes_______________Varnishes_______________Cigarettes_______________Liqueurs_______________Vehicle construction

__________Tires_______________Cigarettes_______________Cigarettes_______________Linoleum_______________Cigarettes

______Shipping line_______________Tires_______________Gas mantles_______________Shipping line_______________Margarine

[acetofive]

Some beauties

[GandalfPC]

Wüst is a must have that I must have.

[acetofive]

The ten of acorns. Great deck.

[atzenhofer]

One of the most important Art Nouveau decks - Otto Tragys Jugendstilspielkarte. Designed in 1898 for Altenburger. Otto Tragy, son of an advocate, was a talented artist, born 1866 in Prague. He studied at the Academy of Arts in Munich. Since 1898 he was a member of the Artistcolony Pasing-Obermenzing and the Munich artists cooperative. He died 1928 in Munich
The scans are from a Patience-deck.

https://www.wopc.co.uk/germany/schneider/otto-tragy

[felicityk]

The Otto Tragy deck is one of my all-time favorites. I have the ASS reprint from the 1970s.

What kills me is this note on the WOPC page:

To my knowledge Otto Tragy designed some 4 decks in the Jugenstil manner for Vereinigte Stralsunder Spielkarten Fabrik (the Altenburg dept.), and they were all produced between 1898-1920

Where are those other three decks?

[atzenhofer]

Where are those other three decks?

Interesting question. I just looked through dozens of auction catalogs from the 1980s to 2010s as well as Uwe Volker Segeths book on Art Nouveau playing cards and there is no evidence of other decks from him. The German entry about him on Wikipedia also just mentions one design and so does WWPCM.
http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks/d00232/d00232.htm

However, the entry on WWPCM brings up a connection to four numbers this deck was issued with: Whist No. 260, Piquet No. 60, Patience No. 263 and Patience No. 265.
Maybe these different numbers were meant?

Although I can't rule it out, it seems like a very thin theory that there are other designs out there, because in my opinion, there would be at least some kind of trace of it somewhere.

[acetofive]

Same impression. I found a listing in Fournier, #489 - A 1978 reissue of the 1905 original, same familiar courts. In the dozen or so Jean Darquenne's catalogs I have, appears once as an advertising deck - the same familiar courts, no issue number. Jean cites: Braun 244; comp. Fournier 489; Segeth [1986] 101; Segeth [1994] pp. 54-55.

[felicityk]

Okay, I feel a little better now.

[atzenhofer]

PER GIOCO UN GIOCO DA GIOCARE (A Game just for the fun of it) by the Italian artist Ugo Nespolo (*1941).

A funky and colorful artstyle, designed and printed around 1972.
More about the artist here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugo_Nespolo

[atzenhofer]

F.A. Lattmanns take on the Berlin pattern.
I like them especially for all the decorated pips on their clothes.
The original wrapper is pretty beat up, but still there

In this particular case, they serve as advertisement for Eckstein Cigarettes, founded in 1854. Before their discontinuation in 2015, they were the oldest German cigarette brand that was still produced.

About F.A. Lattmann, Goslar, Germany:

Today we can look back on over 400 years of print history from that factory, although Lattmann was only a small part of it.
The first known founder was Johann Voigt, who had the concession to print in Goslar in 1604. Back then mostly bibles and other sacred papers were printed. In 1783, after a few generations, the property passed through marriage to the Kirchner family. In 1794, the city council granted permission to build a playing card factory and a type foundry. The card factory was continuously expanded, the foundry was soon sold to F.A. Brockhaus in Leipzig. (Brockhaus is still a well-known name. The factory later printed one of the most popular encyclopedias. It's safe to say that almost every German household had one of these tomes inside ) Fast forward to 1898, after another few changes of ownership, Hermann Lattmann took over. He handed over the management to his son, Friedrich Adolf Lattmann, born 1872. The company was split up in 1923, the playing card production was discontinued in the 1930s.
Another fast forward to the 21st century, which started with the name "creaktiv print+more". Soon they were merged two times with bigger printing companies. After the last merge, everything is now located in Hannover, Germany under the name "QUBUS media".

[atzenhofer]

Advertising deck for SKET (VEB Schwermaschinenbau-Kombinat Ernst Thälmann)
Designed by Olaf Grüzmacher in 1989. 5000 copies were issued by Coeur.
They were released as a 32 and 55 cards deck.

I have the Skat version, so here is a link to see the Jokers: http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks04/d03352/d03352.htm

Grüzmachers name is on the Queen of Clubs. I could not find any further information about the designer so far.

[atzenhofer]

"Maya", designed by V. M. Sveshnikov, published in 1975 by The Colour Printing Plant in St. Petersburg.
This one here is from 1987. The designs are inspired by original Mayan artworks from Mexico.
The plaid pattern backs are the most common, though there are also quite rare backs with Mayan designs.

https://www.wopc.co.uk/russia/maya

[atzenhofer]

The single-headed Bavarian pattern. This pattern was the reason I started my collection. My grandma always told me about this pattern and that they used it in the 50s for their game nights. They somehow lost it, and she was never able to get one again. So when I learned about this and went looking for one I came across the entrance to the playing cards rabbit hole and fell right into it.

So much for the personal part, now on to the card part:

The single-headed Bavarian pattern, also called the Bavarian standard pattern, is divided into two categories: the Munich Type and the Stralsund Type. The Munich type is the one that evolved over a period of almost 400 years. Its ancestors are the Augsburger pattern (~1450), as well as the "early Bavarian pattern" (~1650) and the "late Bavarian pattern" (~1750). It is characterized by Ober and Unter wearing simple knee breeches and almost plain uniform jackets.

Not so for the Stralsund type. In 1882 an army of bloomers, white lace collars, slashed sleeves and fantastically crested jackets conquered Ober and Unter. Further changed attributes are a now pointed shield for the Ober of acorns, a beret for the Unter of acorns as well as a fantasy hat and changed position of the drum for the Ober of leafs. Two aces also changed significantly: The ace of acorns shows Dionysos / Bacchus lifting a beer stein instead of a wine glass. He also clearly sits on a beer barrel now and holds a Thyrsus in his other hand. The background is now also filled with hop plants. Cupido on the ace of hearts now has butterfly wings. The number cards are also slightly reworked. Without a doubt, the Stralsund type is the one with a higher artistic quality. It serves the idealizing and pompous clichés that people in the German Empire had about Bavaria. The Kingdom of Bavaria was in fact a stronghold of idealized lifestyle and art around that time (take a look at King Ludwig II and his castles and aesthetics for example). The Stralsund type was an absolute bombshell and conquered Bavaria in no time and repressed the Munich type.
But where did the Stralsund type even come from?
The tracks lead to the playing card maker Leopold Schehl, Ob. Bäderweg in Frankfurt a./M.
There is a Stralsund type print sheet with his name on the king of hearts from the year 1879. He was most likely the one who ordered an unknown artist to redesign the Munich type.
Somewhere between 1880 and 1882, the playing card makers Lennhoff & Heuser took over Schehls factory, and 1882 Lennhoff & Heuser was already bought up by the VS Stralsund. From here on, the VSS successfully introduced "its own" type of Bavarian pattern onto the market.

The success continued until the 1960s when the double-headed Bavarian pattern took over (which was issued since ~1900). The double-headed variant is still popular today and is printed with mirrored Munich figures as well as Stralsund figures.


Source for most of the information:
"Trommler und Pfeiffer - Die Geschichte der Bayerischen Spielkarten" - Manfred Hausler, 2010

Some more interesting links:
IPCS Old Bavarian pattern sheet: https://i-p-c-s.org/pattern/ps-53.html
IPCS Bavarian pattern Munich type pattern sheet: https://i-p-c-s.org/pattern/ps-54.html
IPCS Bavarian pattern Stralsund type pattern sheet: https://i-p-c-s.org/pattern/ps-55.html
King Ludwig II and his castles: https://www.herrenchiemsee.de/englisch/ ... astles.htm


First an example for the Munich Type: C.L. Wüst, Frankfurt a.M., around 1890:

[atzenhofer]

And one for the Stralsund type: VSS A.G., Stralsund, around 1920:

[Honeybee]

Brilliant atzenhofer. I love the story telling found on the non courts
ps The personal part is always very interesting too. My son had a wonderful relationship with his grandma, albeit too short, but I never had that joy