I was very pleased to be able to finally resolve a long standing mystery within the category of souvenir playing cards.
When I first starting collecting souvenirs about 10 years ago, I came across a single card with an "Italia" back and a view on the face with Italian captions. While the back is very similar to the S28 Hawaiian or SX17 Paris Exposition cards by USPCC, the quality is not quite as nice (especially the brilliance of the gold border) and the Italian language captions suggested something made locally for the Italian market.
I reached out to all of the big souvenir collectors and I found a couple collectors with singles, but no one had ever seen a complete deck nor was aware of its documentation in any references.
I finally found a complete deck lurking in Italy.
The courts are Kings, Queens and Dukes of the House of Savoy (Kingdom of Sardinia, Kingdom of Italy). The aces (1 pips) are important members of Government and key figures in the unification of the country. The remaining pips are views throughout Italy. The joker is the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Italy.
I'd guess this deck dates from c1900 which is when the similar USPCC decks were made. It has gold edges. There is no box. The maker is unknown but I still believe it's Italian.
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