Have you ever wondered why all of the known musical decks of playing cards are European and why there was no American musical pack? Well, so have I but, today, I am introducing what I believe to be a new discovery for playing card collectors, namely, a deck of musical playing cards that was actually made in the U.S. By "musical pack", I am referring to those decks where, when they are laid out in a certain order, they combine to create a piece of music that can actually be played on an instrument, usually, the piano. An example of such a deck would be The Beggar's Opera or the Dondorf "Musikalisches Kartenspiel." These are also quite different from the Court of Music deck by Theodore Presser.
The deck in question is called The Musical Composer or, as per the instructions shown below (2nd photo), The Art of Composing. The instructions are printed in English, French and German. The deck is housed in a booklet-style original case (1st photo) and consists of 32 cards where the 12 court cards come "With true portraits of" the following notable composers and performers from the world of music:
Kings - Mozart, Meyerbeer, Beethoven (3rd photo), Rossini
Queens - Hearts: Jenny Lind (4th photo), Spades: La Grange, Diamonds: Colson, Clubs: Piccolomini
Jacks (Knaves) - Hearts: Brignoli, Spades: Karl Formes, Diamonds: Ferri (5th photo), Clubs: Stigelli
The deck was "Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1860, by S. Zickel, in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York." The publisher's address was 113 Rivington Street in New York City. The cards are oversized, measuring 2 11/16" x 4 1/16" and have plain backs. Mysteriously, the Kings are only designated by a crown in the upper left corner but without any suit signs, whereas the Jacks (Knaves) are designated by a halberd in the right corner and a single suit sign pip in the left corner. The queens only have the single suit sign pip in the upper left corner and are, otherwise, self-explanatory. When not being used to play a regular card game, it is claimed that these cards, when properly laid out in groups of 8 in regular order of K, Q, J, A, 10, 9, 8, 7, will enable the user to compose more than 500 different dances (polkas and gallops) on the piano simply by changing one or more of those 8 cards.
Although my deck is incomplete, it made for quite an exciting discovery and is a nice complement to the European musical packs.
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