I find it interesting to note those occasions when the same back designs are used for different brands. I am referring to those from the late 19th and early 20th century.
In the case of the Bicycle brand, the bicyclecards.org website shows us how USPC decided to extend the life of the back designs known as Eagle and Stag by essentially transferring them from the outgoing Capitol # 188 brand to the ongoing Bicycle brand in 1927. These would be examples of back design continuity with no period of inactivity between appearances.
An example of a back design that did have a period of dormancy in between appearances is the Oak Leaf back design which was first used in the NYCC Bee brand in 1897 when it was described simply as Back No. 154. For some unknown reason USPC decided to reuse this back design in 1947 under it's new name.
The preceding 3 cases show how the Bicycle brand was used to extend the life of certain back designs. But now I would like to present an example going in the opposite direction. The back design in question is called Leaf and it is one of the earliest and rarest of the Bicycle backs as it was issued with the earliest US8a Ace of Spades and the earliest Best Bower card circa 1885.
Now, imagine my surprise when I discovered that this same back design had been resurrected some 30 years later via the quite hard-to-find Monitor brand by Andrew Dougherty which is listed as AD49 in the Dawson/Hochman encyclopedia. The date is shown as c1910 but it is actually 7 or 8 years later as the tax stamp has a wartime 7 Cents overprint dated 1917 and the Ace of Spades has a "Y" code. The deck has plain edges and the courts are the readily recognizable Dougherty designs. An Auction Bridge score card was also included. Pictures of the back design, front of the original slipcase, Ace of Spades and Joker are shown below.
In the instances where selected back designs are brought back to life under different brands after a period of inactivity, I am led to ask the question "Why?" What was it about these particular designs that caused them to be resurrected? Did the companies involved not have time to come up with new back designs and so decided to go through their archives, instead, due to deadlines that had to be met? Once again, I find myself with yet more questions about why certain events took place in the world of playing cards over 100 years ago but no answers.
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