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It's Ephemera Friday. Here is the penultimate set of my collection of the large USPCC ads, but you can always find more on eBay. This week's ads are for Bicycle cards , and they go out to all the fellas. Ads hail from 1945 and 1948 editions of the Saturday Evening Post.

I would have laughed in the day at those old men. It looks more like me and my friends now.

But it looks like a good way to spend an afternoon to me!

It's Ephemera Friday, again. Here is the last set of my large USPCC ads, this time from 1950 and 1951 issues of The Saturday Evening Post. Moving away from poker and Bicycle and shooting for the Congress bridge crowd. Must have been around the time of the Canasta craze judging by the blurb in the corner of the first ad and a joker in the hand being shown in the second ad.

Honeybee wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 10:21 pm But it looks like a good way to spend an afternoon to me!

nice queen you have there

It's Ephemera Friday! Since we were looking at probabilities in a previous post, here's a handy 1960 booklet on Poker Possibilities from Bicycle to celebrate 75 years of Bicycle cards. Since this was 75 years, that may explain why USPCC changed the color of the text of the back name on the tuck to contrast with the main color of the tuck.

Mailman Monday, Santa edition. Jolly Ol' St. Nick left me a nice US Govt use 1950 inner sealed deck of Club Reno No 103 cards from ARRCO, so I thought I'd post the Club Reno collection. I think the proper order by age should be red top left, blue bottom left, then top reds and bottom blues. Club Reno came with the filigree back No. 101 and the diamond back No. 103. I don't know if there was a No. 102. No. 201 was a filigree back pinochle deck.

It's Ephemera Friday! Here's a nifty little 4" x 3" US Playing Card Co booklet from the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, NY in 1901. Would have been great to see that Exhibit in person.

Mailman Monday, New Year's Wednesday edition

Here's a great deck to start off 2024. This is a late 1890s Washburn deck that is similar to my other Washburn decks ( viewtopic.php?p=156377#p156377 ) but with a different Ace of Spades, the great Washburn joker, extra cards and the box.

Since we've spent a bit of time in the 1940s lately for Ephemera Friday, today I present the May 1, 1942 Army Exchange Service EXPORT Playing Card Price List from USPCC.

Mailman Monday! Today we have a two deck set of Andrew Dougherty Climax playing cards, c1905, with a shield and squash (or tennis) racquet design. Most likely these were a special order for some sort of squash club and the shield and crossed racquets were its logo.

It’s Ephemera Friday! A while ago I posted a picture of my KEM (original) Unicorn deck from 1939 ( viewtopic.php?p=215894#p215894 ). Here is an image of the only image I’ve been able to track down that showed this deck back in the day.

Mailman Monday! Couldn't find the deck I planned to post today, but I was in Little Rock over the weekend and saw a sign and memorial for the Rock Island route railway. Sooooo, why not post this c1915 Rock Island deck from The Standard Playing Card Co. for the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific Route along with my sign sighting? Serendipity.

I love how your posts sometimes send me down interesting rabbit holes. I tried to find more about this Rock Island Railroad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago,_ ... c_Railroad

One side of my family is from what was a small town in Texas that used to be a major rail hub for what was MKT Railroad. So, there is a bit of railroad blood in my family.

Thank God It's Ephemera Friday! Starting with today's edition, I'll be posting from my collection of playing card and gambling related postcards. Here's a jaunty fun set of Poker Terms postcards from the early 1900s.

Mailman Monday! Found the deck I wanted to post last week. It is the top deck (c1940 KEM Cameo) in the picture below, though the real find for me was the single deck lift top box. I had never seen this version before, so I posted it with all of my other KEM single deck boxes. Decks on the bottom range from 1935 to 1950.

Thank Heavens It's Ephemera Friday - THEIF! A few more early 1900s post cards for today, a few of these with a literary bent.

Mailman Monday, Tuesday edition.

Here's a companion to a prior post regarding the Legends Serpentine deck and Standard Playing Card Co. - prior pic reposted below under new pic

I have now found an earlier edition of the Serpentine card back design that has the glorious original Standard Playing Card Co. Ace of Spades (not the bland version SPCC switched to)

Thank Heavens It's Ephemera Friday! 4 more post cards on this edition, all from the early 1900s. Next week will be the Valentine's Day special.

Wednesday supersized Mailman Monday. A little late for Mailman Monday this week, so I decide to post 4 different, though related, card backs. First up is the Bee French Whist #68 c1910, followed by the Bee Bridge Whist #68 c1920. Interesting to note the drastic change in the court cards from the French Whist deck to the Bridge Whist deck. Joker was the same for both decks, and the great marionette joker shown is from my jokers collection and has a different back design from the decks shown. Also shown are 1922 and 1928 advertisements for these #68 decks. For a pic of the Hart's French Whist No 68 deck, click here and scroll down - viewtopic.php?f=45&t=6900&p=193905&hili ... 7s#p193905

Exciting Mailman Monday for me today. I picked up a previously unknown KEM deck. It is an advertising deck from Kemper Insurance and the deck has a unique engraved KEM case and has the Kemper Insurance building in Chicago on the card backs. Deck is from 1957, which is newer than most of my KEMs.

Mailman Monday delayed due to Presidents' Day. This week we have this wonderful Bicycle 808 Rider Back brick box from 1962 with 10 sealed decks. I has an open deck also, and the Ace of Spades has a "D" date code from 1962. I really like the graphics on the brick box.

It's Ephemera Friday. On display today we have this c1952 KEM Plastic Playing Cards sales booklet. The Flying Cloud and Blossoms designs came out in the latter half of 1952, so that's what I'm using to date this booklet.

Today the role of Mailman will be played by FedEx Guy on Mailman Monday.

FedEx Guy dropped off a new deck for me today - c1910 Klondike No. 4711 Playing Cards by Andrew Dougherty. An extremely rare deck that was likely issued to commemorate the gold strike in the Klondike. No gold panning joker, but glad to add a new brand to the collection.

Okay, those eyes for the queen are new to me. She seems totally wired on caffine...or is that just me? The king seems a bit concerned and the Jack a bit disconcerted. Cool deck.

Chuqii wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2024 5:35 pm Klondike No. 4711

Do you know anything about where these numbers come from?

I have no clue as to why they numbered the deck 4711

The queen does look like she is sniffing something

Ephemera Friday! Quick shot of some of the card game reference library, specifically my Hoyle's Games books. The three I removed from the shelf are my oldest ones, 1845, 1869 and 1875, from left to right.

Mailman Monday - I feel like I've been buying a bunch of vintage bricks lately, and here is another one. This is the ARRCO "21" poker deck with the Double Diamond back, and the best thing about these decks is the "FOIL FRESH PACK". This is the only brand I've seen that has the cards wrapped in foil, and now I've got a brick of them. When I ordered these, they were listed as sealed, but it looks like the seals all broke in transit. But the FOIL FRESH PACK is still intact. These decks have a floating 0 bar code and registered trade symbol, so I'm thinking around 1994 for these.