Fancy playing card decks are inspired by such a great number of different themes that most of them can be divided into general categories: for instance, many of the samples featured in page 1 are based on civilizations. This page shows a few more of them.
Historical decks represent a large share of non-standard editions. History is an excellent theme for cards because famous emperors, kings, queens, presidents, ministers, generals, etc. can be turned into the personages of the twelve courts (and sometimes into jokers, too). For this reason, more than by a specific historical period, playing card designers seem to be inspired by the ruling dinasties of individual countries.
The first sample shown is about Scotland. The illustrations have a naive design, almost as those of woodblock prints, and the only colours used, besides white and black, are gold and deep red. Also the aces are decorated, yet with a very essential motif, reflecting the rough character of this land.
The second edition shown is about Russian tzars (Ivan the Terrible, Catherine of Russia, etc.), who wear particularly stern faces. Also in this case the graphic details reflect the atmosphere of the old Russian court, and the indices (J, Q, K, despite the French manufaturer) mimic the shape of the old cyrillic script.
Scottish Historical Playing Cards deck
(by Stirling Gallery, Scotland) |
Glorious Russia deck (by Grimaud, France),
inspired by Russian history |
The following example (on the right) is a popular edition by Piatnik dedicated to famous British rulers. Among the courts are some of the country's well-known kings and queens, such as Richard Lionheart, Henry VIII, Victoria, etc., covering about seven centuries. All the cards have a pale yellow background, and the aces are surrounded by a wreath of flowers.
The last two samples shown are French. |
Tudor Rose deck
by Piatnik (Austria) |
Stanislas Duc de Lorraine et de Bar deck
by Grimaud (France) |
The theme of the edition shown on the left is the Polish king Stanislas Leszczynski (1677-1766), whose daughter became queen of France by marrying king Louis XV. The many personages featured in the deck are members of the royal courts of both countries, over the late 17th-early 18th century. The decoration in each card consists of frames of different colour, according to the suit, enclosing an oval single-headed portrait (in courts and aces), or the pips.
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The Napoléon edition has a less glamorous design, with plain backgrounds; the aces are encircled by the collars of royal insignia and decorations, and the suit signs of the kings are topped by a tiny crown.
The last two editions described feature French indices (V, D, R), but only the first one of the two follows the French custom of marking aces as "1".
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Napoléon deck by Grimaud (France) |
LITERATURE
For a designer of playing cards literature is not much different from history, except that the stories it tells are fictional. All over the world literary personages have become as famous as kings and queens, and therefore have been frequently borrowed for the making of fancy decks.
The first example shown is a gorgeous edition by Waddingtons inspired by Britain's most renowned playwriter: William Shakespeare. The characters have been matched to the four suits according to a specific criterium: Hearts represent gentler emotions - as explained in the deck's leaflet - Diamonds wealth or greed, Clubs aggressiveness and strife, while Spades represent tragic methods and schemes. Note how the shape of the signs in the suit of Hearts and Clubs has been slightly modified so to suggest a late 16th century graphic style. |
Shakespearean Playing Cards deck by Waddingtons (United Kingdom) |
The following editions by Lo Scarabeo are dedicated to two works, rather different yet sharing the same taste for adventure,
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift and
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. In both editionsall the cards of the deck are illustrated with scenes from the relevant novel, respectively drawn by Jesus Blasco and Iassen Ghiuselev; in
Pinocchio the illustrations on courts and aces are in colour, while the ones on pip cards are monochromatic drawings in sepia. In
Gulliver, the black suits (Clubs, Spades) are actually deep blue.
Gulliver and Pinocchio, by Lo Scarabeo (Italy)
Aleksandr Pushkin deck by KZP (Russia) |
This other sample comes from Russia, inspired by the works of Aleksandr Pushkin; popular characters such as Evgeny Onegin, Boris Godunov, etc. have been turned into the pastel-coloured courts of this deck, issued by KZP, the country's leading playing card manufacturer, for the 200th anniversary of the writer's birth, in 1999. Note that the double-headed courts feature different characters on the opposite sides of the card. The indices are in Russian.
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Moving further East, the last sample shown is a typical Water Margin deck from China. This 14th century vernacular novel is probably the work more often exploited by card-makers: hundreds of editions have been made, by many different Chinese manufacturers, in which the feats of a group of bandits live again in each of the 52 subjects. This deck typically belongs to the third group of non-standard patterns described in page 1. |
Water Margin deck, from China (manufacturer not stated):
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TOURISTIC VIEWS
A deck of cards makes a typical gadget for tourists when it features the best views of a city, or the highlights of a whole country.
Roma deck, by Dal Negro (Italy) |
Many souvenir editions only have one view, decorating the backs, but the real non-standard decks have several ones, in place of the usual subjects. In this case a variable number of different pictures may be found in the deck.
The first sample, on the left, features views of Rome on the courts, on the the aces, and on the jokers, for a total of 18 different images; the remaining subjects (pip cards) are standard. |
These other samples too are dedicated to Rome. The one on the left is by Modiano, and consists of a set of two decks, sold separately, with different pictures by photographer Claudio Corrivetti. The other one features 18 watercolour paintings that decorate the whole run of cards from ace to king, repeated in all four suits, except the ones on the four aces and on the two jokers, which are different.
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Roma decks by Modiano (left) and by Italcards (above) |
The next edition is from Stockholm, and it features 53 views of the Swedish capital (the jokers too have a view, but they are identical).
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The last two samples show how the views featured by touristick decks may change, i.e. either vertical or horizontal, according to the subject of the single card.
Stockholm deck by Carta Mundi
(Swedish branch of the famous Belgian firm)
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Below left is a large-sized deck (71
x 105 mm, or 2
3/4 x 4
1/8 in) featuring Japanese castles; the leaflet that comes in the package not only provides useful notes about the castle, who built it and the main historical events it witnessed, but also includes a small table with the names of all 55 subjects (one of them belongs to the three jokers), on which the owner is invited to mark with a tick the ones he/she actually visits.
On the right is a touristic deck, from Argentina, with 52 landscapes from different cities and regions, the highlights of the whole country (the two jokers, though, feature a cartoon-like personage). All the illustrations are oriented horizontally.
The back of the deck reads
Sol Jet, the name of a local travel agency; the presence of the logo makes this edition belong also to the group of advertisement cards described in
gallery 2.
(thanks to Toshiko Igarashi
for kindly
providing me with this deck)
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left: Castles deck by Sanyou Enterprise/Nippon Karuta (Japan);
above: Sol Jet deck by Gráfica S.A. (Argentina) |
old deck commemorating the opening of the Panama Canal,
published in 1915 by the U.S. Panama Canal Commission |
The last sample is a 1915 vintage deck commemorating the opening of the Panama Canal. Its faint oval views of the area are in the typical fashion of the earliest playing card editions featuring photographs, a variety whose making became possile thanks to the new printing and photographic techniques, during the first two decades of the 1900s. Also in this case each subject of the deck, including the joker, has a different picture, but the background colour changes according to the suit: light green for Diamonds (and the only joker, which in those days was a single card), light blue for Hearts, light orange for Clubs and light tan for Spades. |
