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The Trophy Whist decks were advertised for their large, prominent indexes. Here's an ad from 1904. And, yes, French size is bridge size, also referred to as whist size. ( Scroll back to previous page for deck pics or click on this link: viewtopic.php?p=262178#p262178 )

No Mailman Monday today, but I have hopes for Wednesday. While we wait, here is an ad from an 1895 American Stationer's Magazine. American Stationer is a great place to find old playing card advertisements, and most of the volumes are available on Google books. This particular ad shows some decks in some colors that I don't believe they were ever produced in ( like a brown New Fan), so the printer may have taken some artistic license. Also, it looks like there was an issue with the scanning in the bottom quarter of the page. That, or something to do with the Matrix.

Hot out of the mailbox today we have a US2 Russell & Morgan Co. Sportsman's 202 deck with its original telescoping tuck, c1881. I love the detail on the Ace of Spades, but I think the card back could dial it back a bit on the fishing imagery. I would like to see what kind of fish they need that trident for.

( Here's a link to my previously posted 1880s Sportsman's decks: viewtopic.php?p=190328&hilit=Sportsman#p190328 )

Yes the AoS is super interesting - the fishermen would have looked even better with a slightly smaller plain pip

An antique advertising deck from Standard Playing Card Co. for Morris & Goldschmidt, Clothiers and Furnishers, Chicago, dating to late 1890s, SU2 Ace of Spades.

Backs in landscape orientation never look right to me

Right. They always look weird when you are using playing cards to, you know, play cards.

Sort of Ephemera Friday. Today is a really old deck of playing cards for the game PIT. I used to play this game a lot at my grandmother's house. A lot of fun if you've never played.

Anyway, these cards caught my attention in a lot of cards that I bought because of the back design - Bee back design No 32, which I like to call Snowflake. I thought I had an old Bee deck in an old PIT box, because I'd never seen a PIT card back like this. But no, it was an old PIT deck in an old PIT box. Thought it does make me wonder if NYCCC, the manufacturer of Bee brand, was making the decks for Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers also had some playing cards, and here is a link to my Parker Brothers decks: viewtopic.php?p=259648&hilit=bellevue#p259648 viewtopic.php?p=116396&hilit=bellevue#p116396 though Standard Playing Card Co. made the Parker Brothers playing cards.

Mailman Monday! Continuing with the PIT deck from last week, here are three other early PIT sets from the early 1900s to about 1920. No idea why they could not just pick one back design and stick with it. By the way, the blue deck back design is the same as the Invincible brand from Western Playing Card Co., so maybe Western was printing that set.

No idea why they could not just pick one back design and stick with it

Although I have never heard of PIT down here in Oz, maybe they were looking to improve it and create more sales like the multitude of scrabble and monopoly versions we have seen this generation. Maybe there was some other differences as I see the second one is labelled 'Bull and Bear edition'
Each of the three boxes looks progressively more modern and I could not imagine the first of those decks in the third box

You are probably right about the new editions. I think the three sets here cover around 20 years, so would make sense they'd do a refresh every now and then. As for the Bull and Bear, these were two special cards added to the deck to enhance game play. I believe the original deck in 1903 did not have them, and they were added in 1904. Here's a pic of the front of the cards in these three sets and the Bull and Bear cards to see how the card faces also changed over time (not much). Looking at these and the slight changes, I'd wager top row is oldest, followed by third row, then second row, then last row.

For today's Ephemera Friday, let's keep looking at Parker Brothers. Here is a four page Parker Brothers ad from 1907 American Stationer announcing their new offices at the famous Flatiron Building in New York and showcasing their product lines.

Back to the archives for today's posting. Here is a really nice deck from Perfection Playing Card Co., c1890, when it was still in Philadelphia. I did not realize how many Perfection decks I have, so I've got a few more that I will be sharing soon. This is the only deck I have that has the full tinted card back.

Mailman Monday! I am a sucker for late 1920s two deck packs, and this is the first one I've seen for Russell Blue Ribbon cards. Twin-Dex , c1928, great color combo, High Finish, Filigree back on the two bridge size decks. Here's a link to my Aristocrat Twin-Dex packs: viewtopic.php?p=146961#p146961

Chuqii wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 2:19 pm Mailman Monday, this time from France. eBay selling in France had a ton of KEM decks up for sale, and I picked up a bunch. Arrived surprisingly quickly. Though I normally collect only vintage KEMs, I picked up some newer decks here. The top row are newer decks, and the top left and top right I'd never seen before. If you know the design name, please let me know. The Hennessy deck is from the 1980s, and the Nellie's decks are from the 1950s. KEM Crest is a design I had not picked up yet, and then I added another set of the only KEMs that have Brown & Bigelow on the Ace of Spades (bottom deck, previously posted here - viewtopic.php?p=87415#p87415). I also picked up some decks for resale: Angels, Polo, the always great Flying Cloud, The Hunt and Mosaic. All in all a nice haul.


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I found this forum through this amazing thread. I’ve long collected playing cards, mostly casino decks, transportation advertising, and vintage KEM decks. As a native of St. Louis, that Nettie’s KEM ad deck has been on my radar for a while, but I have yet to put my hands on one. As a big fan of Raymond Lowey, finding out through this thread that he designed four decks for KEM has put those on my radar, too.

What got me to sign up and post, though, is the deck in the attached photo. It’s the most badly worn KEM deck I’ve ever seen - Dec. 1939 date code, but the date code isn’t on the Ace of Spades for some reason, it’s only on the cleaning card. It came with a pair of Neillite boxes, both of which have some damage. One has a blank circle where the back emblem would have been attached, the other has the cast-in spade in the circle. The other decks with it were a mostly complete April 1948 red “Cranes” deck that had some light cupping and edge chips on a few of the cards, a better mostly complete October 1948 red “Cranes” deck (I combined the two to make one complete deck, minus jokers), and a very fragmentary green “Cranes” deck that presumably matched with one of the red decks.

The pictured, worn 1939 deck - I haven’t found that back pictured anywhere. Any idea what it’s called? (The cleaning card is marked with the 4 of diamonds for a reason - the deck is complete, but the original 4 of diamonds is actually torn like I might expect from a plastic-coated card, and missing one end.)

You found a good one ( and one of the very few I don’t have). That deck is one half of a two deck set called, if I remember correctly, Night and Day. The Night version shows the same scene at night. I’ll double check my sources and verify.

* Proper name is Nite and Day according to ad posted below.

Chuqii wrote: ↑Sat May 24, 2025 12:33 am You found a good one ( and one of the very few I don’t have). That deck is one half of a two deck set called, if I remember correctly, Night and Day. The Night version shows the same scene at night. I’ll double check my sources and verify.

It’s a shame it’s so rough. I didn’t know the printing on KEM cards could wear like these did.

One curious thing I noticed, this being my only pre-war KEM deck: the axis of rotation for the one-way back and the one-way cards (like the Ace of Spades and the care/cleaning card) is the short axis, so the one-way faces are inverted from the one-way back. I think all of my post-war KEM decks that have one-way back designs have the axis of rotation on the long axis, so that “top” is the same direction on both sides.

I like the backs

I do not have a Worthpoint sub but a google lens search led me to these pics

Honeybee wrote: ↑Sat May 24, 2025 2:01 am I like the backs

I do not have a Worthpoint sub but a google lens search led me to these pics

It’s a great design - the “night” version is killer.

There’s a lot of ink transfer between those backs and the faces of the other cards! Zooming in, it looks like these also have a C129 date code (though actually printed on the Ace, unlike my deck). Seems like Kem was having some printing issues around that time.

There does seem to have been a lot of red ink bleedthrough around that time, but lot also depends on how the cards have been stored. KEM cards do not like it hot. I’ve seen a number of “bricked” decks where all of the cards have stuck together, and when you pull the cards apart, ink bits are still stuck and transfer. This Worthpoint deck looks bricked.

Besides the red, there’s a lot of blue/black transfer on that “Night” deck, and my “Day” deck has significant use wear to the backs and indexes. In the photo I posted the heavy ink loss is visible on the Ace of Spades indexes. None of my postwar KEM decks, even the pre-1950 examples, have any sort of ink loss like that. Some of them have signs of significant use - they’ve acquired something of a smoothed surface from repeated handling, but not the ink loss.

Here is a December 1939 ad announcing the new KEM Nite and Day decks.

Mailman Monday! Picked up another antique USPCC 500 decks with the Bid back design, mostly because this deck came with a lot of goodies. Deck is 1913 based on Joker and Ace of Spades. This is the second USPCC 500 Ace of Spades. Here's a link back to some of my other 500 decks: viewtopic.php?p=204118&hilit=500#p204118

Interesting accompanying sheets Chuqii
Not that one is likely to play poker with a 500 deck, if you were, then the odds of getting a hand of some sort all decrease (get worse) except for the flush

I played poker with a 500 deck once, and I remember that the straight and flush ranks were switched on the hand ranking chart I found at the time. Might be due to using the more modern 62 card 500 deck which incorporates the red 13s. That might be just enough to tip the scales so that straights were ranked above flushes. BTW, I don't recommend playing poker with a 500 deck.

Back in 2019 I posted my collection of vintage ARRCO Streamline tucks, but I noted that there was one tuck I did not have at time. Now I do.

Introducing the ARRCO Streamline 4 INDEXES 4 Playing Cards. Interesting that one of the jokers is stamped with "Adventureland Bazaar - Disneyland - Anaheim California" The Adventureland Bazaar opened in 1955, and, since this deck still has a bit of tax stamp on it, that would date this deck to between 1955 and 1965. I always thought this 4 Indexes deck was made for export, and maybe that is why it was selling at the Adventureland Bazaar? Here is a link back to that old Streamline post showing the evolution of the Streamline tuck: viewtopic.php?p=166770#p166770

I love how you write "Introducing the ARRCO Streamline 4 INDEXES 4 Playing Cards."
I should actually have 'say' not 'write'
As I can hear the announcer saying it
Chuqii the showman

Back to the 1920s for today's Mailman Monday. c1924 Here is a deck of USPCC Vogue No. 831x brand playing cards with a scenic back design named "Vale." "x" because they are gilded. Very similar to the Congress Peaceful Vale back design.

Finally got my hands on an 1895 "It's All in the Draw" bound booklet, so I'll be posting the pages here over the next few days. Nice poem and illustration for poker hands in ascending order. Draw referring to 5 Card Draw poker. Booklet measures 9 1/2" x 5 1/2". Enjoy!

Continuing our stroll through the 1895 It's All in the Draw booklet with pages 5-8