As a historically-minded joker collector, I've been contemplating and researching what could be considered the first joker. I find it complicated. 

I hope to discuss the topic with others who are more learned than I am at the 52Plus Conference in Niagara Falls in three weeks and I wrote an article to prepare. 
https://www.amusedbyjokersami.com/2024/09/investigating-great-invention-of-1800s.html

I started by thinking that to count as the first modern joker, the card should be called a "joker", be a multipurpose extra card, and have a jester on it so that it belongs at court with the kings and queens.

But from there, I found myself in a maze of historical sources and definitions. While I started by relying 100% on info from The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards, I learned that it too has some errors. 

(I tried to post this in the section on Card Collecting but the forum did not present me with a 'New Topic' menu choice there.)

I have an old deck known in Hochman, NU13. P113. It's a National Playing Card Company deck with three Palmer Cox Brownies on the joker.

I think mine is NU13 since the Ace of Spades says "Full House", not "Boston".   In reading about it in Hochman, there is a mention of there being two versions of this ace of spades. One marked "patent pending", the second with the patent date.

On mine, the 1890 patent date is cited on the box. The ace has 96 as the code. The joker has j84. There's no mention of a patent pending.


My deck:



First question, does anyone know how to find the patent that was granted? I have searched a number of ways on the US Patent database but not found anything relevant. 
https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/static/pages/ppubsbasic.html





I have several different versions of this joker, the others are later, perhaps Hochman 13a since they have the US corner indices.





The Second Question is more obscure. Does anyone have any idea about the intellectual property or royalty arrangement between Palmer Cox and the National Playing Card Company? Would Palmer Cox have allowed his characters to be used free by National on this and the other National Jokers such as NU18a and NU10a?


Has anyone researched this?


I have a similar royalty question on all the early Congress606 decks which used famous artwork, much of contemporary at that point, on the backs of their cards (and on the jokers in the Matching Decks). They had Dundreary on their joker for around two decades. Was all of this royalty free? Did it fall somehow under "Fair Use"? Was there any sort of agreement?

In addition to the cool old cards, note the old Bakelite plastic box.

John, I'd be interested in talking to you about them. I'd want to see more of the decks, specifically the jokers.
Here's some info on the old decks that I have that I was organizing. 

https://www.amusedbyjokersami.com/2023/11/more-old-american-decks.html

Thanks. I?m now studying the Playing Card Museum Poster by the US Playing Card Company. Are you familiar with it? I?m trying to:
1. Identify the publisher and year of each pictured card
2.  See how many of these cards I have
3. Find out about the history of this poster and when and who put it together.
4. Get myself a high res copy or even an original.

Can anyone help?
It?s a work in progress:

https://www.amusedbyjokersami.com/2020/12/joker-poster-inventory-of-my-status.html

So far, I?ve mostly finished Row 1 of 8.
Thanks.

It looks good.

The jokers would fit well in either my:

Americana joker collection
or the section about
American People

I'll look at joining the kickstarter bid...

Welcome to the forum,
I checked out your kickstarter deck. I'm all about the jokers so I like the trickster concept.
It's a little pricey to get them shipped from Japan (it would cost more than the decks).
I noticed on your royal cards, the indices has the suit but not which royal they are.

Hello card people,
In high school, back in the 1970s, I worked as a magician. One store-bought trick culminated in transforming all the cards into different jokers with different backs. I thought the jokers were dull so I started looking for more interesting jokers.  This has turned out to be lifelong (so far) hobby.

Btw: I've forgotten the trick, sound familiar to anyone?  I think it was a store-bought self running thing but I don't remember.

So I've now been collecting jokers on and off for a long time.
My collection is online at www.AmusedByJokersAmI.com

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