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Playing Card Chat ♠ ♥ ♣ ♦ => Playing Card Plethora => Topic started by: Pacis on February 15, 2013, 06:30:29 AM
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I just bought a wooden box with two decks inside.
I can see they differ from each other and, as you'll see on the photos, one of them seems to be USPCC.
The owner of the shop doesn't know anything about them but the fact they must have at least more than 25 years old.
Here are some photos with some of the cards of each deck.
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The joker of the 1st image is an Aristocrat deck Joker
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The joker of the 1st image is an Aristocrat deck Joker
I only have the reprint of the Banknotes so correct me if I'm wrong but those aren't the Aristocrat jokers I'm familiar with. The jokers on my decks are the one with big baggy clown pants.
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The joker of the 1st image is an Aristocrat deck Joker
I only have the reprint of the Banknotes so correct me if I'm wrong but those aren't the Aristocrat jokers I'm familiar with. The jokers on my decks are the one with big baggy clown pants.
Yeah, that's not the Aristo joker in the picture. Baggy-Pants is the Aristo joker, even on the older packs.
The bottom deck is some generic deck and I couldn't tell you where to begin getting a manufacturer or date without a box. Even with the box, you're still not likely to find the maker if there's inadequate markings on it to give origin info, which a lot of cheaper generic decks didn't have. You could research the joker and the AoS, but it would be a lot of hunting and pecking, more miss than hit.
The USPC AoS code indicates a year of manufacture of either 1991, '71, '51, '31 or '11.
The back looks familiar to me... A ha, I found it!
Looked through my collection. The USPC deck is a bridge-sized pack of Aviators. The joker matches as does the card back. My pack is from '92 and was made for the Canadian market (International Playing Card Company is listed on the AoS and the pack has English and French markings). Looks pretty much identical to yours - except that the print process on yours for the AoS code is older. Newer decks (like my '92) used lithography to print the sheet with the code built-in, while older decks actually used a stamp with changeable numbers, a lot like a date stamp. For the older decks, it meant USPC could use the same plates for many print runs over a number of years if they wished, and the plates were probably made of a much stronger material than what's used now, like thick steel or iron. (It would be a major reason why there's not so many older custom decks out there!) If forced to guess, I'd say the pack is probably made in '71. It's impossible to know for certain if it's older without more extensive research, but it's not likely to be younger.
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Definitely not younger. And that's a pretty good guess, as it has more than 25 years old. So, probably from 71 as you said.
Thank you very much, Don Boyer!
As for the other one, I find the cards to be very pretty. It's odd not having uspcc name on it, as they came in the same wooden box.
Any ideas?
Thanks
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I only have the reprint of the Banknotes so correct me if I'm wrong but those aren't the Aristocrat jokers I'm familiar with. The jokers on my decks are the one with big baggy clown pants.
]Yeah, that's not the Aristo joker in the picture. Baggy-Pants is the Aristo joker, even on the older packs.
sorry to disagree. On Monday I upload some pictures of one of my aristocrat decks with this joker.
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as they came in the same wooden box.
But you didn't get this brand new did you? I'm guessing it's used and that since these are bridge cards (and you need 2 decks to play bridge) one deck was lost and was replaced with the Aviators - and the other deck was just generic that came with the box.
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I only have the reprint of the Banknotes so correct me if I'm wrong but those aren't the Aristocrat jokers I'm familiar with. The jokers on my decks are the one with big baggy clown pants.
]Yeah, that's not the Aristo joker in the picture. Baggy-Pants is the Aristo joker, even on the older packs.
sorry to disagree. On Monday I upload some pictures of one of my aristocrat decks with this joker.
Well, that's not the usual Aviator joker, either, but there it is. Aviator jokers have the Aviator name/logo on them. It's not unheard of for a deck to have a different-than-usual joker. But that doesn't change the fact that the usual Aristocrat joker is the baggy-pants clown. Your deck is different for some reason.
Definitely not younger. And that's a pretty good guess, as it has more than 25 years old. So, probably from 71 as you said.
Thank you very much, Don Boyer!
As for the other one, I find the cards to be very pretty. It's odd not having uspcc name on it, as they came in the same wooden box.
Any ideas?
Thanks
It's not so much guess work, really, since the letter codes are a known variable.
The other deck can very easily not be from USPC. Mix and match sets like this are common. Buy a wooden box, stick two decks in it and voila, boxed set.
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I see what guess means. Sorry, I wanted to say "find", "info".
Didn't know that kind of mix could happen. Too bad there is no info on the generic one. Anyway, I like it more than the uspcc one.
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I see what guess means. Sorry, I wanted to say "find", "info".
Didn't know that kind of mix could happen. Too bad there is no info on the generic one. Anyway, I like it more than the uspcc one.
Smaller printing companies came and went like ocean waves and still do to this day. it's tougher to keep track of them - tougher still if the printer is out of the US, especially in countries like China that have so many printers creating and selling cards in the US.
In the US, with USPC being the 800-pound gorilla in the market, in addition to the company's acquisitions of any and every US company that's even close to being a competitor, they're the company that we have the most knowledge about - and even that knowledge is spotty and incomplete because they kept some lousy records over the years.
The biggest reason for the lousy record-keeping, aside from the company itself being acquired by other companies over the last half-century or so, is the fact that playing cards are and always were considered ephemera - things that were created to be disposable, which we not meant to last long periods of time. As playing cards became cheaper and cheaper over the years (adjusted for inflation), people didn't worry about keeping decks in pristine condition - they wore them out, tore them, bent them, got them dirty from handling, then REPLACED them with the very same product, a new pack of playing cards. In that sense it was the same as comic books, magazines, newspapers, concert flyers and tickets, movie posters and so on - people never thought they had value until nostalgia set in, and by then few examples of the stuff they liked and used when they were younger still existed. It's why Action Comics #1 sells for the low five figures and why the Bicycle Victory Series decks are among the most expensive and toughest-to-find decks out there.
So, just as the products themselves weren't considered of high value at the time they were made, neither were the records of them, so much of the company's history is lost to time and neglect. Now that people actually recognize the existence of intellectual property and have been able to digitize most of what we create, detailed records and information on modern products, no matter how mundane or ephemeral, are more easily stored, preserved and accessed.
Wow, I'm in a real tangential mood today, hunh... :)) I actually have a t-shirt this reminds me of. In large print, it reads "Try not to let your mind wander." Below it in small print, it reads "It's too small to be out on its own." :))
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Well, that's not the usual Aviator joker, either, but there it is.
The Aviator design is USPCC's 'Generic' deck. They'll throw a new Box around the same cards and call them something else. Aviator, Torpedo, Caravan, Mohawk - the list is pretty extensive, but they all contain the same cards. Newer Aviators do have the Aviator Joker, but the Generic Joker was also used - especially in the other 'budget' decks.
So really - that design could indicate anything at all - without the box, it's pretty much impossible to tell.
-Jake
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Well, that's not the usual Aviator joker, either, but there it is.
The Aviator design is USPCC's 'Generic' deck. They'll throw a new Box around the same cards and call them something else. Aviator, Torpedo, Caravan, Mohawk - the list is pretty extensive, but they all contain the same cards. Newer Aviators do have the Aviator Joker, but the Generic Joker was also used - especially in the other 'budget' decks.
So really - that design could indicate anything at all - without the box, it's pretty much impossible to tell.
-Jake
True, but the fact that it's bridge-sized makes a difference. I don't think those budget brands come in sizes other than poker. The bridge-sized Aviator deck I have has that exact same joker and ace, and his deck is also bridge-sized. The only major difference was that my deck (made for the Canadian market) had all the IPCC markings on it, while his deck has that older style of AoS letter code on it - it looks as if the code were selected by turning wheels on something a lot like a changeable date stamp, but more industrial grade for the printing press.
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after searching I finally found.
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after searching I finally found.
That's a USPC generic joker. Why else would you find it in more than one brand of deck?