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Playing Card Chat ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦ => A Cellar of Fine Vintages => Topic started by: Chuqii on February 10, 2017, 11:05:08 AM

Title: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Chuqii on February 10, 2017, 11:05:08 AM
Just picked up this neat item from USPCC which I am guessing is from around 1900.  Lots of info about Cincinnati and some ads for USPCC printed on what look like USPCC card backs.  I could identify the Congress Delft Back, but not the others.  Anyone happen to know if the other designs were also card backs, and, if so, what the names are? 
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Chuqii on February 10, 2017, 11:10:47 AM
Here are some more:
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Chuqii on February 10, 2017, 11:14:02 AM
And last one:
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: skinny on February 10, 2017, 07:09:02 PM
Nice piece!

No help here.
I was thinking about Mill, Oasis, and Ripples but you are showing none of those. I'm looking through a 1911 reference and an incomplete 1924 reference. It's curious that yours show samples at 50 and 60¢, when the (gilded) Congress prices (including Delft) from 1911 list at 50¢.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: tobyedwards on February 11, 2017, 12:25:04 AM
That is a wonderful piece you have.
I believe that each of the backs shown belong to the Cabinet # 707 brand, of which I am able to positively identify 6 of the 10 you have provided. They are as follows in the order in which you have shown them:

1. Water-Lily
2. Forest
3. Cascade
4. Delft (also available in the Congress # 606 brand as you indicated)
5. Rustic
8. Rural

I do not have any information on the other 4 backs that comprise this piece.
Thank you for sharing your new acquisition.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Chuqii on February 11, 2017, 08:42:35 AM
Thanks Toby and Skinny for your help on this.  Your info helped me find this old Cabinet #707 ad from a 1898 Fashion Series Playing Cards in Miniature booklet.  Now we can id one more.

6.  Old Mill

Now only three to go.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: torcams on October 10, 2018, 11:58:02 AM
This is a really net set of cards.  I recently found something very similar, dated 1900 and put out as an agenda and pamphlet for the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Chuqii on October 22, 2018, 12:45:01 PM
That is a cool set you have.  Looks like USPC used these as promotional tools.  I saw another set of these but they were produced for a convention, if I remember correctly.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: torcams on October 28, 2018, 03:55:58 PM
Here are two pages from a USPCC Catalog showing some of the backs you've already ID'd
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Chuqii on October 28, 2018, 09:28:24 PM
Which book is that?!  Wow.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: torcams on October 28, 2018, 09:42:15 PM
it's on ebay now from a seller with a lot of very interesting playing cards and ephemera, montytootreasures4u.

Listing is titled Very Rare 1898 U.S. Playing Card Co. price list book with color illustrations

Here's what they told me about it:

It was retrieved from one of the seven walk in safes when USPC left The Norwood Facility and moved to Erlanger Ky.

I asked if they had pictures of the Cabinet 707 pages, hoping to further this investigation and they obliged.  There are some great pages shown, such as the one with the incredible Lenox bee and spider backs.  I didn't want to push my luck any further but if I did, I would've asked to see the El Dorado page(s).
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: torcams on February 11, 2019, 11:35:09 PM
I believe photo 9 is this back, but I do not know the name....
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: torcams on November 17, 2019, 11:17:56 AM
Dave Seaney pointed me to WOPC which ID's this back as part of National Card Co's Crescent brand's "art series"

Anybody know any other backs from this series???
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Chuqii on November 19, 2019, 12:17:41 AM
Nice find!  I haven’t seen that type of Crescent back before.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: flexdeck_mike on November 19, 2019, 06:07:04 AM
Here are two pages from a USPCC Catalog showing some of the backs you've already ID'd

....How does one get a hold of a USPCC catalog like this?! They're not readily for sale, right?

Best,
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: torcams on November 19, 2019, 09:18:01 AM
Here are two pages from a USPCC Catalog showing some of the backs you've already ID'd

....How does one get a hold of a USPCC catalog like this?! They're not readily for sale, right?

Best,

They come up on Ebay from time to time.  Be prepared to pay big bucks ($1k) as they are very poplular.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: torcams on November 19, 2019, 09:21:11 AM
Thanks to Barb Lunaberg for helping us find this back.  Maker unknown but after the last one, now I suspect National.  One more to go....
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: Don Boyer on November 19, 2019, 02:14:24 PM
Here are two pages from a USPCC Catalog showing some of the backs you've already ID'd

....How does one get a hold of a USPCC catalog like this?! They're not readily for sale, right?

Best,

They come up on Ebay from time to time.  Be prepared to pay big bucks ($1k) as they are very poplular.

Yes, they are costly - but hopefully, some will be available online at the Conjuring Arts Research Center (CARC) in the not-too-distant future.  Bill Kalush acquired a number of these lovely catalogs.  You'd likely need to be a CARC member at some level or another, but it's worth inquiring if it's of interest to you.
Title: Re: Help ID'ing USPCC backs in Cincinnati souvenir from c1900
Post by: NCC1888 on November 20, 2019, 02:11:00 PM
That same ebay seller had a number of playing card stock certificates for sale over the last couple years. I contacted him for an interview for the 52+Joker magazine but he declined. He said that when USPC closed the Norwood factory he provided maintenance and security for the place for about 10 years. He was told everything left, after selling the equipment and such, was junk. He said he found a number of old stock certificate books in a walk in safe and took them home. He never mentioned other items to me.
I have a youtube video of a tour of the abandoned factory on my National Card website. Also a story about what is inside the factory's cornerstone that has NEVER been opened.           https://thenationalcardco.weebly.com/