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No mailman today due to President's Day, so, in recognition of the Olympics, here is a 1929 deck from Italian manufacturer Gugliemo Murari out of Bari, Italy. I believe these are hand colored. Cards are smaller than normal measuring 3 1/4 x 2 1/16 inches. It is a 40 card deck with 1-7 then three court cards, which is typical in Italy. Spanish suits of Cups, Coins, Clubs, and Swords.

Let's go ahead and make this Olympics Week here at Chuqii's Show Us your Cards. Today, we'll head over to Sweden with this vintage 1961 deck of Obergs Spelkort from J.O. Oberg & Son in Eskiltuna, Sweden.

Olympic tour continues with vintage 1940s New Bond and De Luxe bridge decks from Universal Playing Card Co. / Alf Cooke out of the UK.

Next stop is Austria with this two deck set of c1930 Ferdinand Piatnik and Sons Jockey brand playing cards. Really fun Ace of Spades, but I fail to see how the card back fits the theme of the brand.

In recognition of Spain' Olympic first gold medal in over 50 years, here is a c1960s Heraclio Fournier 818 Gigante Poker deck.

Closing ceremonies for Chuqii's Olympic Tour. Today we have a couple of Nintendo All-Plastic playing cards from the 1970s, 1980s. That's followed by some links to old posts of mine with foreign playing cards, and we wrap thing up with some 1984 LA Olympics decks from Bicycle.

Antique Grimaud and Concorde decks from France: search.php?keywords=grimaud&t=6900&sf=msgonly

From Canada, a couple of Bicycle decks from the International Playing Card Co: search.php?keywords=International+uspcc ... sf=msgonly

A couple of poker decks from Mexico: search.php?keywords=mexico&t=6900&sf=msgonly

A Buffalo deck from Germany: search.php?keywords=germany&t=6900&sf=msgonly

And a set of 1984 LA Olympics Bicycle decks

Back to our regularly scheduled programming with today's Mailman Monday. Today we have a deck from Russell PCC with a back design I'd never seen before. I did some digging, and it turns out that this back design was used by the Willis W. Russell Card Co. for their Mogul brand of playing cards. In 1912, Benjamin Rosenthal, the vice-president of Kalamazoo Playing Card Co., bought the Willis W. Russell PCC as part of the formation of the Russell PCC, so this back transferred over to the new company. However, since I've never seen it before, I doubt it was used much.


Here's the 1912 report about the purchase of Willis W. Russell Card Co. (I do love Google Books for research)

I love all the knowledge you share Chuqii

Ephemera Friday once again, and I am here to answer the question that has been on everyone's mind, "When did playing card companies start wrapping their decks in cellophane instead of glassine paper?"

Thanks to this DuPont ad, we now know: 1929.

I wonder whether all of the cellophane used on decks is acid free and oh neutral?

Special Ephemera Friday UnBoxing day here at Show Us Your Cards. We start with a mailed box from General Card Co. (really ARRCO under a different name) with a postage date of August 3, 1942 out of Chicago. Take a look.


Let's remove the box top ...


Found some stuff inside. Four separate card sample packages.


Let's see what is in the orange one.


Is there more?


Surely that was the end of it? No? Ok.



I have a couple of these General Card Co. sample sets that I've listed before, but to have 4 sets in the original mailing box with all of the ephemera is too sweet. Not all of the packages have all of the same or as much or any ephemera, so that's why we went through the orange one. I'll show the other sample sets in the upcoming weeks.

Meanwhile, here is a link back to my previous General Card Co. sample sets: viewtopic.php?p=208936&hilit=general+card#p208936

P.S. - And this is why we can't have nice things. "Destroy your old samples" !?!?! Heartless.

You had better start knocking on doors Chuqii if you're going to 'Make Extra Money' - your Playing Card Order sheet is blank

Don't worry. One deck already came in - Fiesta No 58 - Tan. I already had this deck for sale on eBay ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/167359848803 ) before I received the General Card Co. sample sets.


I don't know if these were the Ace of Spades and joker used for the General Card Co. decks or if there was another one, but it is cool to have the back name for some of these 1940s bridge decks.

Post-vacay Wednesday Mailman Monday - Just got back into town and the Mailman was kind enough to drop off some items for me while I was gone. This is an interesting deck, because it provides more evidence for a link between American Playing Card Co. and Western Press. Same exact back design, first with American Playing Card Co and then with Western Press with the same courts, and then the back design again with a later Western (probably WPL) Interstate deck with new court designs. And then WPL beefed up the design with more points on the center star and thicker lines and even more new courts. Check them out.

c1900 American PCC

c1918 Western Press

c1925 WPL Inter-State

c1940 WPL Interstate

Mailman Monday today brings this fine deck from the Perfection Playing Card Co. for the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific railway, c1895.

P.S. Here is a link to my previous Perfection Playing Card posts: search.php?keywords=Perfection+playing+ ... sf=msgonly

P.P.S. I updated my Aviator decks post with some sealed 1980s Aviator Jumbo Index decks: viewtopic.php?p=267731#p267731

For today's Mailman Monday we have two decks of of NYCCC / Samuel Hart & Co 35 Squeezers Seconds. Decks do not have the "THE" over the spade, so this dates them to the early 1900s. I checked my 1922 NYCCC Hoyle's Rules for Cared Games book and found that these designs are back numbers 43 and 45.