Quote from: 52plusjoker on March 01, 2016, 01:42:01 PM

Name is Crowly, not Crowley

Do you know what that means?

No Idea - maybe there was a famous monkey late 29th century with that name.

Thanks for the additional info Don. I await confirmation from Tom but finally I think that the name of the back requested by Queen of Spades is probably Crowley. I found a copy of the first Aladdin joker (pictured below) with this same back. But If it's not the Crowley back, we can still include it in the first backs used for the Aladdin brand.

Dome & Dragon are correct. Below is Crowley

Aladdin #1001 started a mid-range brand around 1885.  Even after the buyout by USPC in 1893, Aladdin was continued as a regular brand - likely being phased out in the 1920's. It was revived for specific export sales in more recent times - don't know when but would guess 1980's. Will try and find backs to share in the chaos here.

Hi, everyone, first-time poster.

I'm not a collector, at least not of vintage decks, but I think I might have Done Good.

Now, I like to thrift for boardgames, as the current boardgame renaissance has mostly passed by the kinds of games I like (abstract strategy and classic card games).But  I nearly always skip over the playing cards, since I've certainly got plenty already, and they're cheap enough that second-hand doesn't really make sense. But for some reason (maybe it was the larger than usual number of decks), I decided to paw through them today. There ended up being quite a load of Bicycles, though not rider backs.

I've handled enough decks (having gone through my magic phase) to know that these were old, no coating on the box, just plain paper, and some sort of tax stamp, etc.. At $.49 a deck, I figured it was worth speculating a bit. So I picked up a couple of the ones in the best shape. Wasn't till I got in my car that I made out the cancel in black on the stamps: 4-1-19. At that point, I went back into the shop and picked up anything that looked remotely old. They vary from well-played but still snappy, to still-in-the-original-wax-paper. Boxes range from "pretty chewy" to "mint, but for the glue that didn't last 100 years".

My haul:
bikes (all with at least portions of the stamp dating to no later than 1924, most with that 4-1-19 cancel visible)::
5 expert backs
2 tangent backs
1 wheel back
1 new fan back

others:
1 rexall drug (same stamp as the bikes)
1 uncle sam (only deck not to have a stamp, appears later, as flap states 1942)
1 arrco canasta (later as well, card in shrink, having the 1940-1965 stamp)

I can post pics if anyone is interested. Interestingly, none of the bicycles seem to line up with the alphabetic dating system found on cypressfilms.com. The main "collection" (i.e., not the Uncle Sam and Canasta decks) seem to have had an interesting legacy. Clearly someone was enough of an avid card player to buy up 10 decks, but somehow only through a couple, leaving most of them close to intact for 100 years.

Wow. Long time since we found an old Bicycle deck at less than $5 - much less 49 cents. Well done and welcome back into card collecting!

Sorry - don't have that back.

Very nice finds - both are early - I'd say 1885-1890 period.

Nice Bicycle deck - ones with peaked hat Joker are very collectible. Ramnlers OK too. Hornets are rare, especially with the hornet joker as many have a generic USPC joker.

This deck is on ebay for $50 any ideas what it might be worth?

http://m.ebay.com/itm/1800s-Antique-Playing-Cards-John-J-Levy-Consolidated-Card-Co-New-York-Crisp-/401055943578?nav=SEARCH

Check out Hochman!

Thanks for posting this - interesting.

We have a lot of information about this deck which was never actually issued. When home next week will look and see if we can help.

Have searched all my Longley papers and information to no avail. Will remain a mystery I suspect!

Thanks for posting this - great deck and I had never even seen a picture before!

Quote from: 52plusjoker on November 09, 2015, 09:55:17 AM

If the Ace was depicted we know for sure - otherwise just because the seller said it was Hart does not mean it was.

Sorry but I don't understand your doubt. I wait for the additional pictures from the buyer but the deck was really made by Samuel Hart. I did not lie but you are free to not believe me..

Let me be clearer - We know if we see a Hart Ace with the same back. If we do not see the Ace, how can we be sure it is a Hart deck? I WAS NOT ACCUSING YOU OF LYING - it is not a question at all about believing you - rather if your belief that it was a Hart deck was based on representations from an eBay seller, that they might not be accurate.