Court cards ... why are they different?

[dkhofmeister]

A friend of mine at USPC asked me recently why there are differences in the court cards between the bridge size and poker size Bee, Bicycle and Aviator decks. The differences are subtle (facial expressions, clothing, colors) but are striking once you examine them closely. Can anyone explain why the courts are different? Has this been the case since the cards were issued or were the changes made more recently?

[Don Boyer]

I would venture a guess that the last time the bridge deck faces were redesigned was some time ago - it's not their most popular product.  It's only recently (perhaps last year) that I've even started seeing new-stock Bicycle bridge decks printed in Erlanger with the new box design (and that's six years after the company's move from Cincinnati).  Image-altering software like Photoshop probably wasn't in use when that design was made, so simply squeezing the existing poker-sized images down in width wasn't an option.  Unique faces were made to accommodate the more narrow image area.  USPC has made a number of alterations to their standard faces over the years - I'd call this just another one of them.