I recently acquired several sealed decks of early to mid 1940's vintage playing cards,  when I got them home I noticed an odor. I placed the decks in a ziplock bag for a few hours,  I then opened the bag and gave a sniff.  The odor was unmistakably that of cigarettes and pipe tobacco. I then decided to carefully open the decks and inspect the cards. I very cleanly cut the tax stamps an I found the outside cards on every pack to be yellowed, presumably from sitting in a smokers home for decades.

It may not be worth messing with, but does anyone know of a way to clean the yellow off of the cards that were on the ends of the stack of cards (against the inside cardboard package)?   I'm not real worried because I did not spend much money on these, but the decks are in like new condition except for the yellow ace of spades and the yellowed back of one of the jokers.


 

Cool, I think I'm going to join 52+J, that's another reason to,  I never made it inside USPCC, but other companies, which were later acquired by USPCC, for example, my Gemaco cards are from before they were bought. Not sure if they still operate out of the same plant in MO or not. I suspect the Gemaco casino cards are made in a secure facility like some of the Credit Card manufacturers I used to service.