In the Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards, we find the listing L34 for the Caterson & Brotz Rough Backs brand in the chapter pertaining to the Longley Brothers and Successor Companies. Part of this listing contains a quote from the box describing the advantages of this newly patented technology. Today, I thought I would share with the visitors to this website, pictures of the front and back of the very attractive original box from the "sister" deck issued by The Reynolds Card Mfg. Compy. of New York which is found under the listing L37a in the same chapter. Further cementing the obvious connection between the two companies, not that any additional evidence was needed, is the fact that this very same quote also appears on this box. I am also showing a picture of the wonderful back design which may be the work of Edwin R. Eavenson who designed other ornate back designs for Caterson & Brotz. The characteristics of this kind of surface treatment are that the face of each card is smooth but the backs have 8 columns of slightly raised diagonal lines each measuring approximately 5/16" wide and separated by a tiny space in between. The direction of the diagonal line in each column alternates so that, when held at a certain angle, the overall effect appears to be a herringbone pattern.

Staying on the subject of rough surfaced playing cards, the next two pictures show the front and back of the original box for a brand of playing cards called Sure Deal issued by The Union Playing Card Company of New York. I have not shown pictures of the ace of spades or the joker because both are already shown under the L40 listing in the encyclopedia in the Longley chapter. It is interesting to note that the idea of changing or "improving" the card surface was not unique to one playing card manufacturer or, if it was, then Union was related to Caterson & Brotz and Reynolds. What is different about the treatment of these cards is that they are advertised on the box as Rough Surfaced Cards and not just rough backs, therefore, true to their word, both the front and back of each card have been affected. The nature of this treatment is also different in that the entire card now has a series of slightly raised vertical lines which made me think of the grooves cut into the pavement of certain stretches of highway that are prone to slickness in times of inclement weather in order to help provide greater traction for the cars that travel over them. So just as a road is prevented from becoming slippery, these cards proclaim that they are prevented from becoming sticky.

If any collector knows of another manufacturer who issued a brand of playing cards with a similar treatment, please share that information here.

This must be quite a rare deck of cards as it is not fully described in Chapter 33 - Novelty Playing Cards from the Hochman Encyclopedia. I shall attempt to provide greater clarity regarding this deck here. First, the designer of this deck has his name misspelled in the encyclopedia as Castleton. It is, in fact, George Frederick Castleden who was a British-born artist who ultimately moved to New Orleans around the time of WWI and opened his own studio at 622 St. Peter St. This address appears on the sides of the OB (please see first picture of back of OB below). Second, the correct name of these cards is not Mardi Gras cards but, instead, Vieux Carre Playing Cards. The term "Vieux Carre" means Old Square in French and is the French Quarter, the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans and a popular tourist destination. This deck is so titled because, to quote from the extra joker (please see second picture below), it is "A souvenir of the Old French Quarter of New Orleans, sketched from existing sites of historic and romantic interest by the noted artist Geo. F. Castleden in collaboration with Lewis A. Clapp." Each of the 52 cards contains an oval scene in black for the spades and clubs and in red for the hearts and diamonds. Samples of 3 of these cards are shown below followed by the court cards from the diamond suit. The court cards in the major suits, spades and hearts, are identical, showing the Mardi Gras King and Queen, while the jacks show a pirate. The court cards in the minor suits are also identical and essentially the same as the major suits but there are slight changes made to them. The following is a list of the scenes shown on each pip card.

AS - The Cabildo
2S, 2H - Duelling Oaks - City Park
3S, 3H - Stairway - House of the Two Sisters
4S, 4H - Old Louisiana State Bank
5S, 5H - Court of the Lions
6S, 6H - Madame John's Legacy
7S, 7H - Courtyard - Arts and Crafts
8S, 8H - The French Market
9S, 9H - Courtyard - Le Petit Theatre
10S, 10H - Pirate Alley

AH - Saint Anthony's Alley

AD, AC - Gen'l Jackson's Residence
2D, 2C - Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop
3D, 3C - Doorway - The Absinthe House
4D, 4C - Courtyard - Gov. Claiborne's Res.
5D, 5C - The Napoleon House
6D, 6C - Old Mortgage and Deeds Bld.
7D, 7C - Saint Louis Cathedral
8D, 8C - The Paul Morphy House
9D, 9C - The Haunted House
10D, 10C - Courtyard - The Cabildo

As can be seen from this list, the scenes on the pip cards are repeated with the exception of the Ace of Spades and the Ace of Hearts making a total of 21 different scenes from the French Quarter plus the 3 different court cards. The card backs show a reversible image of Jackson Square with a one-way title Vieux Carre. There is an accent over the letter "e" in "Carre." The backs came in either red or blue. The entire deck would have consisted of 54 cards in total with a joker and an extra joker but, sadly, my deck lacks the joker. Should any other user of this website have an example of this deck in their collection, I would love to see a picture of this card. This deck was printed in New Orleans by Tropical Prtg. Co., Inc. in 1930 and is copyrighted by G.F. Castleden on 12-1-30. Mr. Castleden also published a series of postcards showing his artwork of various views of the French Quarter which he sold to tourists.

It has taken me awhile, but I have finally managed to locate my Telbax deck and so I can now provide the users of this website with some pictures, thus, adding to what has already been shown here. This deck is listed as N54 in the Novelty Playing Cards chapter in the Hochman encyclopedia and it shows a particular back design (first picture shown below) with the 4 doves in the corners which, I believe, indicates that it was made by the Independent Card Corporation of Johnstown, PA which would date this version to no earlier than c1926. The second picture shows the front of the OB for a different earlier version of this deck. Unfortunately, the cancellation on the tax stamp is indistinct. The third picture shows the Ace of Spades and the joker but notice that both the OB and this Ace of Spades show the company as being from Mishawaka, IN instead of Huntington, IN. As noted in the encyclopedia's description of this deck, it comes with a "marked" back whereby one "can tell the denomination of each card from the different size cross on the back" and so the fourth photo shows the back of the Ace of Spades with the thinnest cross and the back of the King of Hearts with the thickest cross. The name Telbax is just a different way of reading "tell backs" here.

Today, I thought I would take a brief break from introducing previously unseen or unknown variations of playing cards in order to share a pair of photographs of an outstanding early advertising piece for Andrew Dougherty's longest running brand, Tally-Ho # 9. The front is in glorious color and shows a wonderful interpretation of the brand name with all the courts riding in a coach which has a Tally-Ho Ace of Spades on it's door. Unfortunately, this piece itself is undated but it does mention that this brand is "The First Cheap Enameled Playing Card Introduced to the Trade July 1st, 1885." The back of this piece provides more information about this brand and shows an example of the early joker with the small printing of "Joker" in the two corners. This advertisement appeared in the pharmacy journal "The Western Druggist" which was published from 1884-1928.

Shown below is what I believe to be a previously unknown variation of the Ace of Spades from the US5 series of listings in the Hochman encyclopedia found in Chapter 7 - The United States Playing Card Company. I have taken the liberty of giving it the designation of US5aa because I believe it dates from 1885 or slightly earlier and that it predates both US5a and US5b. This "new" Ace of Spades reads "Russell & Morgan Co." in the manner of US5 whereas both US5a & US5b read "The Russell & Morgan Ptg. Co." on their Aces of Spades. This "new" Ace of Spades has the same combination of design elements of US3a to the left of the central spade pip and of US4a to the right of the central spade pip which is quite similar to the treatment found on the later US5b Ace of Spades. The back design is one of the reversible designs in red which is frequently found for this brand featuring a central design with a vase in the lower right corner.

Given that neither the print nor the e-book version of the Hochman Encyclopedia show a picture of the Ace of Spades for the NY47 Patent Squeezers listing in the NYCC chapter, I thought I would share a photo of this elusive card with my fellow playing card collectors.

I am resurrecting this older post because I came across previous mention of this particular Ace of Spades while rereading my earlier editions of Clear The Decks, therefore, this isn't exactly a new discovery although at least I discovered that it is a marked deck. A picture of this Ace of Spades was shown in Tom Ransom's detailed and informative article on marked cards in Vol. IV Number 4 from October 1990 on page 16 where it is referenced as MC41 but he did not show the back of the card. He showed a similar, but different, early marked pattern back referenced as MC40 but the markings on the back of my deck pertaining to the identification of the face of each card are in the number and position of certain leaves in the pattern. The second picture of this particular Ace of Spades, albeit quite a soiled example, appeared in Vol. XVIII Number 3 from September 2004 on page 12 in an article about a lot of old playing card singles of which this was one. A different pattern back was shown and I believe it, too, is a marked back although I would need a picture of a second back from that same deck in order to determine how it is marked.

In the absence of a baseball season, so far to date, due to the extraordinary circumstances the country finds itself in these days, I thought I would delve into one of my favorite series of decks issued by the Willis W. Russell Card Co. under their Rustlers brand, known as "The Base-Ball Boys". I intend to provide some information that may not have previously been known and I shall also pose some questions to those who peruse this website in the hope of obtaining even more knowledge in this regard. This series of 6 decks, each featuring a different baseball player on the back in a different pose, comes in blue, red and green. The reference number in the Hochman encyclopedia is SE16. Each deck was put up in it's own unique tuck box printed in the same color as the card back found within, which showed the title of the series and a miniature of the card back contained within. What I find most interesting is that each back design comes with it's own unique phrase printed below the miniature picture on the box. I have 3 pictures below for 3 of the poses while a fourth pose and phrase is shown on page 14 of the 2nd edition of the Supplement & Price Guide to the Hochman encyclopedia in 2004. Here is a list of the 6 poses and the known accompanying phrases for each.

Catcher standing behind a base as if preparing for the next pitch or play - "At the Home Plate"
Outfielder with both hands raised as if preparing to catch the ball - "Getting to Safe Hands" (this pose is shown in the supplement)
Pitcher with both arms raised behind his head as if preparing to deliver a pitch - Unknown
Fielder bent over with both hands lowered as if preparing to field a ground ball - "Shoot it Right This Way"
Fielder bent over with right hand on knee and left hand with ball in glove - Unknown
Fielder with right arm raised and ball in hand as if preparing to throw the ball - "Take a Look at This One"

No matter the pose shown on the card back, each deck has the same joker which is the picture of the catcher and his accompanying phrase and copyright date underneath. The familiar "R" logo corner indices found on most Russell jokers is cleverly formed by 4 baseball bats and a baseball. One question I have for this audience is "Does anyone have original boxes for the remaining 2 poses so that we can identify their respective phrases and, thus, finally have a record of all 6 of them? I have shown the 2 poses below in red, for which I am missing their phrases.

I also have a 1910 baseball schedule for the Cleveland team issued by the Plain Dealer newspaper. The encyclopedia shows a schedule for the Washington team from the same year issued by the Washington Herald newspaper. My second question is "Does anyone have a baseball schedule card from this series for any of the other 6 teams from 1910? It is important to note that although the Rustlers brand has a copyright date of 1906, "The Base-ball Boys" variation actually has a copyright date of 1910 which might help to explain why the two known baseball schedules are both from that year.

It has also been stated in the encyclopedia that "We cannot determine if these photos represented particular players, or just players fielding different positions."  I noticed that the team name on the players' uniforms says "Ludlow" and so I wondered if there ever was such a team and, sure enough, to my pleasant surprise, there was. Interestingly it was not in New Jersey where the Russell factory was located. I believe the players shown on the card backs from this series are real ball players from the 1910 Ludlow, Kentucky team. I am unsure as to whether they were a minor league team or a semi-pro team. I found a photograph of this team on the website entitled nkyviews.com and I believe that the outfielder pose is the player shown on the left and the fielder preparing to throw the ball is the player shown as the second from the right. I do not know how to import a photo from one website to another so interested readers will have to go to the cited website to see it for themselves. I am unable to match, to my satisfaction, the faces from the remaining 4 poses to any of the others shown in the team photograph. I also do not have the necessary internet research skills required to unearth the actual identities of the players and so I shall leave that task, again, to interested readers.

The card you show with the children is from a special edition Congress deck made for a Mr. Jacob Godfrey Schmidlapp who was a prominent citizen of Cincinnati, apparently as a Christmas gift for 1917 based upon the photo of the box shown below. The children shown may have been his grandchildren. Mr. Schmidlapp was a classic American rags to riches success story having established a distillery in 1874 and, later on in 1890, he organized The Union Savings Bank and Trust Company, both of Cincinnati. The second photo shows the special Ace of Spades that came with this deck. Selected phrases also appear above the central pip on each of the other aces in this deck. I do not know if this was the first of the series of such special Congress decks made for Mr. Schmidlapp by USPC. I do know that there was a deck issued for 1918 but I do not have any examples, however, the third photo shows the back design from his Christmas deck from 1919 which represents his home, Kirchheim. In this deck the Ace of Spades is the standard Hochman US6g version which was in effect at that time. The fourth photo shows the Ace of Clubs from this deck which has selected phrases above and below the central pip. This treatment also appears on the red suit aces. Given that Mr. Schmidlapp passed away just before Christmas, 1919, it is likely that this brief special series of Congress decks ended then.

As an aside, the name of the narrow card shown at the bottom of your second post below the two wide cards is "Antoinette".

A while ago, I had shown four seldom seen original boxes from the National Card Co. because I thought the designs on them were beautiful. It was also interesting to note that the front and back of each box was different. Today, I am presenting four seldom seen original boxes from the Bay State Card Co. because I think their designs are attractive, although not quite in the same class as the National boxes. It is unfortunate that the same designs shown here are repeated on both sides of the box and so there is not as much artistic effort on display in these instances.
The Colonial No. 20 brand is referred to in the Hochman encyclopedia under the SU23 listing in the Standard Playing Card Co. chapter whereas the Four-In-Hand No. 22 brand is referred to under the SU24 listing in the same chapter. The Judge No. 97 brand is referred to under the SU28 listing, also in the same chapter, and two different boxes issued for this brand are shown in the second photo. This brand was also issued with a later, much less visually interesting, box with only wording on it and no accompanying artwork, therefore, it is not shown here.

Briefly returning to the subject of lacquer backs and in response to Matt's picture of the Dougherty butterfly back, here is USPC's Congress version of their Butterfly lacquer back with named joker for comparison.

Today, I thought I would share photos of four of the back designs I have in my collection made for the J. I. Austen Company c.1895 by the Standard Playing Card Company, both located in Chicago.
This pertains to the SU13 listing in the Hochman encyclopedia which references a corresponding brand number of 506 whereas my decks are housed in what I believe to be the correct original boxes showing the brand number for this particular Gold Border style to be 503 as shown in the first photo. Oddly, I also have an example of the deck shown in the encyclopedia under the SU13a listing but that box has the brand number 501 instead of the 506 cited and these borders and designs differ from the ones I am presenting today..
The second photo shows the Ace of Spades, one of the beautiful back designs with it's specified gold border and what I consider to be one of the best looking jokers ever designed.
The third photo shows an additional three back designs for this particular brand, one of which is also shown under the SU13 listing in the encyclopedia.
As I have encouraged other viewers of this website to do previously, I would welcome the opportunity to see other back designs for this brand which fit this specific gold border variety.

In reference to Matt's earlier posting of his Congress lacquer back deck featuring the frogs, I thought I would share what I believe to be a later variation of this back design that comes with one of the named jokers replacing Lord Dundreary. The later version has a different arrangement of the cattails together with a different background of birds and stars.