Hi I am Roy (hopwood147) I currently live in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. Originaly from the UK (54 years ago). I am a retired Professional Magician. I have been collection playing cards for more than 50 years. Not particaly into this modern trend of 'creating' so called collectable playing cards. I have no idea how many decks I have other than it is in the hundreds. I am looking to finaly catalogue my collection and estimating a value with a view to selling it.
Welcome to the forum, Roy. We have all stripes of collectors here - the forum was purchased by a club based in North America called 52 Plus Joker, and the club was founded by people who collected vintage and antique playing cards, mostly US-made standard decks. In recent years, it's expanded its scope and in doing so revitalized its membership rolls.
We have collectors - and creators, too - who are interested in modern custom designs as well as reproductions of classics from the recent and distant past, and there's a smaller club that recently merged with us that specialized in collecting "single swaps" - individual cards from decks, rather than entire decks. Often single swap collectors are interested in the artwork on the backs but find the rarer and more valuable decks more difficult to obtain, or in some cases they specialize, like collecting a specific card (the Ace of Spades, a joker, some other value and suit, etc.) that they're fond of. I'm still learning more about single swap trading myself - I'll be meeting more of the members of this group at this year's convention, being held in October in Cleveland, Ohio.
Long story short, I think you'll find that if you're interested in playing cards, however that interest is expressed, you'll find you're in good company here!