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A Cellar of Fine Vintages / Card Patents from 1800s - National Playing Card Company
« Last post by JohnEdelson on March 19, 2024, 10:21:18 AM »I have an old deck known in Hochman, NU13. P113. It's a National Playing Card Company deck with three Palmer Cox Brownies on the joker.
I think mine is NU13 since the Ace of Spades says "Full House", not "Boston". In reading about it in Hochman, there is a mention of there being two versions of this ace of spades. One marked "patent pending", the second with the patent date.
On mine, the 1890 patent date is cited on the box. The ace has 96 as the code. The joker has j84. There's no mention of a patent pending.
My deck:
First question, does anyone know how to find the patent that was granted? I have searched a number of ways on the US Patent database but not found anything relevant.
https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/static/pages/ppubsbasic.html
I have several different versions of this joker, the others are later, perhaps Hochman 13a since they have the US corner indices.
The Second Question is more obscure. Does anyone have any idea about the intellectual property or royalty arrangement between Palmer Cox and the National Playing Card Company? Would Palmer Cox have allowed his characters to be used free by National on this and the other National Jokers such as NU18a and NU10a?
Has anyone researched this?
I have a similar royalty question on all the early Congress606 decks which used famous artwork, much of contemporary at that point, on the backs of their cards (and on the jokers in the Matching Decks). They had Dundreary on their joker for around two decades. Was all of this royalty free? Did it fall somehow under "Fair Use"? Was there any sort of agreement?
I think mine is NU13 since the Ace of Spades says "Full House", not "Boston". In reading about it in Hochman, there is a mention of there being two versions of this ace of spades. One marked "patent pending", the second with the patent date.
On mine, the 1890 patent date is cited on the box. The ace has 96 as the code. The joker has j84. There's no mention of a patent pending.
My deck:
First question, does anyone know how to find the patent that was granted? I have searched a number of ways on the US Patent database but not found anything relevant.
https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/static/pages/ppubsbasic.html
I have several different versions of this joker, the others are later, perhaps Hochman 13a since they have the US corner indices.
The Second Question is more obscure. Does anyone have any idea about the intellectual property or royalty arrangement between Palmer Cox and the National Playing Card Company? Would Palmer Cox have allowed his characters to be used free by National on this and the other National Jokers such as NU18a and NU10a?
Has anyone researched this?
I have a similar royalty question on all the early Congress606 decks which used famous artwork, much of contemporary at that point, on the backs of their cards (and on the jokers in the Matching Decks). They had Dundreary on their joker for around two decades. Was all of this royalty free? Did it fall somehow under "Fair Use"? Was there any sort of agreement?
