Late 19th Century Playing Card Reproductions - Vanity & Faro (Kickstarter)https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playingcarddecks/late-19th-century-playing-card-reproductions-vanit
Two beautiful decks brought back to life, including a famous transformation deck!Cost: ~US$10 per deck
Current funding level: over 150% (fully funded)
Kickstarter ends: Mon, April 29, 2019
The Vanity Fair deck (1895) A
transformation deck is a unique deck of playing cards where the pips have been incorporated into a larger artistic image. As an example, the six pips on a Six of Clubs might be transformed into part of a larger image picturing five birds. Typically these pips use their traditional location on the card and retain their red/black colours.
Transformation decks were very popular in the 19th century, with some incredibly creative decks produced in this time period. The Vanity Fair Transformation deck was published in 1895 by the United States Playing Card Company. Here's a picture showing some actual cards from an original deck.
While the two-way court cards were also turned into comic figures (e.g. one is smoking a pipe, another holding a spoon), the real attraction of this deck lies in the number cards with transformation art.
The Aces also received special attention. This deck remains one of the finest examples from this era of what the genre of transformation cards could produce.
The Faro deck (1887) The Russell & Morgan Squared Faro deck was first printed in 1887. It was originally supplied to casinos for the game of faro, a popular gambling card game from this time, and can be considered more of a "workers" deck. To learn more about the traditional game of faro, check out
this article.
All the art from both decks has been digitally hand painted from scratch, while sticking as closely as possible to the original artwork and designs. The process began by scanning in artwork from the original decks, or using high quality images of cards from these decks, and then recreating it. The cards themselves are being printed by United States Playing Card Company, an industry leader, and maker of the famous Bicycle playing cards.
Will Roya has been involved in the playing card industry for several years, and has extensive experience both as a retailer and as a creator, with a proven track record for fulfilling his Kickstarter projects.
This is the kind of deck that will appeal to any collector of quality custom playing cards, and the novelty and creativity of these transformation cards is almost certain to make them a hit with whoever sees them. I'm a huge fan of transformation playing cards, and you don't have to be a collector like me to realize that this is a unique and rare opportunity to pick up something truly special!
Kickstarter link:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/playingcarddecks/late-19th-century-playing-card-reproductions-vanit
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