Ask the Experts at 52 Plus Joker

[tonyb300]

Hello card experts, I'm not a card collector, nor do I aspire to be one. I simply have a bit of vintage items, one of them being this vintage complete deck of Smith's pinup playing cards, made in Copenhagen. I've kept it simply because the cards themselves are in such good condition and it's always been a cool item to have around. Recently I've been considering selling them, but the best way and the proper pricing has been hard to pin down because there isn't a lot on this subject online. I've seen single cards being sold on eBay, but this is a full set of cards with no bends or folds, and although the box is open and shows a little wear, there are no bends or folds on the box either.

Again, I'm not a card collector, I am a guitar player and fisherman, (I belong to forums on both those subjects) but I'm only trying to find the best way to move this item and to find a good selling price. Any suggestions and tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks!!

[Don Boyer]

Hello card experts, I'm not a card collector, nor do I aspire to be one. I simply have a bit of vintage items, one of them being this vintage complete deck of Smith's pinup playing cards, made in Copenhagen. I've kept it simply because the cards themselves are in such good condition and it's always been a cool item to have around. Recently I've been considering selling them, but the best way and the proper pricing has been hard to pin down because there isn't a lot on this subject online. I've seen single cards being sold on eBay, but this is a full set of cards with no bends or folds, and although the box is open and shows a little wear, there are no bends or folds on the box either.

Again, I'm not a card collector, I am a guitar player and fisherman, (I belong to forums on both those subjects) but I'm only trying to find the best way to move this item and to find a good selling price. Any suggestions and tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks!!

I have three possibilities for you.

1) eBay would be the easiest and simplest way to go - biggest venue on Earth for selling collectibles.  Use a guide such as the Hochman's Encyclopedia/Price Guide to determine a good selling price and put together an offering from there.

2) Members of 52 Plus Joker can post items for sale immediately on our STISO (Sales, Trade and In Seach Of) boards - Aces and Eights is the vintage and antique board for selling playing cards.  Their only prerequisite is to read the board's rules and abide by them.  Non-members can also use the boards, but they do have other prerequisites that are explained in the rules - easy enough to reach and free of charge.

3) If a deck is rare and valuable enough and in good condition, there are auction houses that hold periodic auctions of playing cards and similar ephemera - perhaps consigning your item to one of those sales would be beneficial.

I should also point out, for what it's worth, that the presence of that tax stamp on the pack of cards indicates that it was at some point sold at retail in the United States, regardless of initial point of manufacture.  "1 PACK" stamps were in use from 1940-1965, when the tax on playing cards was revoked.

[Chuqii]

Just received my first no  pip no index deck today.     Anyone happen to know what the "BC" or "CB" stands for on this deck back?  Tuck box says "Made Expressly for CLUBS", so maybe the name of a club?  Also, deck shipped from England.  Let me know if you have any info or suggestions.  Thanks.

[Don Boyer]

Just received my first no pip deck today.     Anyone happen to know what the "BC" or "CB" stands for on this deck back?  Tuck box says "Made Expressly for CLUBS", so maybe the name of a club?  Also, deck shipped from England.  Let me know if you have any info or suggestions.  Thanks.

I think you might be confusing "no pip" with "no index."  That deck does have pips - the suit symbols are all known as pips, as are the dots on the faces of a pair of dice (or a singular die).  It's the indices in the corners that are lacking - they didn't come around until some time in the 1870s by most people's reckoning and by sometime around "the Great War" had just about pushed non-indexed cards out of existence.  At some point, people were often referring to non-indexed, square-cornered cards as "faro cards" because that was the game they were being used for more often than not once indexed cards came into fashion.  Yours, however, aren't square-cornered - that's a little unique, as far as I know.  Rounded corners are another innovation that became popular in the 1870s or thereabouts, along with two-headed court characters and joker cards.

I have no idea what the initials stand for.

[Chuqii]

Thanks for pointing that out, Don.  Cards without pips would be a bit hard to play with.

BUT, does anyone know what the "CB" or "BC" stands for on these Dougherty American Playing Cards?  Any guesses?

[oddfluxx]

Hey,
I got this card from a friend. Of which deck is this card? He found the card on the road. I like the design.

[flyers3003]

Hey,
I got this card from a friend. Of which deck is this card? He found the card on the road. I like the design.

http://www.bicyclecards.com/product/bicycle-coral-and-indigo-fashion-playing-cards/#filter
http://www.portfolio52.com/deck/3884/view

This is a deck that came out this year - not vintage - and is currently only available at Walmart.  USPCC says that they should've been available on their website back around August (see comments on the bicycle cards website above), but it hasn't happened yet.

[akicer]

I just post a question (maybe in the wrong thread),,, just wanna know if there could be some better place to get certain vintage cards other than ebay?

[darkinertia]

with aviators, is there a timeframe where they switched from prefaced congress cards to the aviators we see today? ive been looking for early 2000s aviators for a while now(which is almost impossible for me to find for some reason) but from that i got into collecting aviators in general and i have some from just about every decade since the 40s  to 80s and i noticed something, from the 80s on back, theyre prefaced. i havent really seen legit aviators with the real faces until you get later into the ohio era

[Don Boyer]

I just post a question (maybe in the wrong thread),,, just wanna know if there could be some better place to get certain vintage cards other than ebay?

Other than eBay, you could try auction houses that hold special auctions, you could try flea markets, garage sales, estate sales, and of course, there's always the 52 Plus Joker Annual Convention.

with aviators, is there a timeframe where they switched from prefaced congress cards to the aviators we see today? ive been looking for early 2000s aviators for a while now(which is almost impossible for me to find for some reason) but from that i got into collecting aviators in general and i have some from just about every decade since the 40s  to 80s and i noticed something, from the 80s on back, theyre prefaced. i havent really seen legit aviators with the real faces until you get later into the ohio era

Hmm...  prefaced Congress cards?  I've personally never spotted Congress cards in an Aviator pack, though that has a lot to do with Congress cards not having been in a poker size for some time now, just bridge, while Aviators stopped making bridge-sized cards years ago as well, only coming in poker size.

What I have spotted is Aviator cards being used as filler for the more "generic brand" boxes like Mohawk, Torpedo, etc. as filler to use up the boxes.  I'm told that at one time, those boxes were used to hold whatever leftover stock USPC had lying around that they needed to get rid of at discounted prices just to get it out of inventory.  In my age, though, it was Aviator decks more often than not that was the filler material for those decks.  It probably had to do with Aviator being the cheapest deck they made at the time, assuming those boxes were filled before 1987, which is when USPC acquired Arrco and all their brands - today, the cheapest brand that they personally make is Streamline and the cheapest brand they sell is Maverick, which is printed for them by a third-party contractor in China.

None of the Aviator decks I've discovered were ever pre-faced - Congress is the only deck I've seen them pre-face, and only because they used to offer a wider variety of card backs which changed with buying trends and fashion.  Pre-printing the faces allowed them to be faster and more flexible in getting the cards made and out the door with whatever the back design of choice was at the time and allowed them to change designs swiftly as needed when sales of a particular pattern started to waver.

I think the burning question I have is "How old is the Aviator deck you have, that has pre-faced, poker-sized Congress cards in the box?  Or are they bridge-sized?"

[darkinertia]

im assuming theyre congress faces im not sure, but i know for sure theyre not the standard aviator faces. heres a couple, i cant remember if i read it on the lee asher page or somewhere else but i thought that uspc decks made without a code on the ace of spades is typically a prefaced deck, and im not too sure about the ones of the right since they do have a code but arent the normal faces.

http://imgur.com/ikpfh6N

[Don Boyer]

im assuming theyre congress faces im not sure, but i know for sure theyre not the standard aviator faces. heres a couple, i cant remember if i read it on the lee asher page or somewhere else but i thought that uspc decks made without a code on the ace of spades is typically a prefaced deck, and im not too sure about the ones of the right since they do have a code but arent the normal faces.

http://imgur.com/ikpfh6N

I have a 70% scaled-down copy of your image attached.

The two decks on the left are definitely not pre-faced - they have date codes.  All four decks have USPC Aces of Spades, but they're "generic" aces that were used in many different deck designs.  I've seen Aviator bridge decks using this design.  It could be that at some point, they were using generic faces for Aviator decks - but do they have the Aviator backs?

The second deck's tuck box is quite interesting - I'm not sure when this design was discontinued, but I'd estimate it was some time in the 1960s, at the height of "jet culture."  The old prop plane design hearkens back to the original design - the deck was released to commemorate the first-ever trans-Atlantic flight, made by Charles Lindbergh in the late 1920s.  The plane on the box is meant to be a stylized version of his Spirit of St. Louis.  By the '60s, though, prop planes as commercial airliners were rarities as jet planes started dominating the airline fleets, thus the change in the box design and even the deck's overall theme.

My best guess as to what the story with these decks are is that USPC, once they stopped using brands like Mohawk, Torpedo, Caravan, etc., to sell off whatever cards were left over/remaindered, they started getting rid of them in Aviator boxes.  But it's really just a guess - if anyone has more information about this, I'd love to hear from you!

[CuriousTabbiKatt]

I have some old cards I just aquire.  Was going to use them but One has a phone number on it with an area code consisting of only one number. Another has the us playing card company Co. Windsor ontario.  On it.  Should I hang onto them is what I'm trying to find out. At this point they look like they've never actually been used. Only opened.

[Chuqii]

My two cents:

you can use cards with the horse on them.  Looks like a local advertising deck, so unlikely to be worth much (also unlikely to be very good cards)
Save the New Index, not worth a whole lot ($15-20), but neat historical deck from the 1930s or so
Potter's Scotch Whiskey, could be worth a bit ($20-25) depending on how old it is, if Potter's is still around and has a following, so I'd hold on to it

[Djh2752]

I just bought a box of 45 decks of cards the other day for 20 dollars. Ended up containing a few decks worth some money but I'm not as curious about them as i am with one deck in particular.  It is a 1915 squeezers number 35 from London about the same time as the triplets came out, " the only real competition against the squeezers".
Info wise this is all I've been able to find, I'm wondering about rarity, when they stopped being produced. I'm just missing the actual box, but still all 52 cards and jokers if not mistaken. I'm not wanting to handle them more than absolutely needed. Any and all info reguarding worth and the like would be wonderful. Quality wise for age and all i would rate it lower than it actually is but they would be between a 6 and an 8, very limited damage. Pictures avalible upon request.

[Don Boyer]

I just bought a box of 45 decks of cards the other day for 20 dollars. Ended up containing a few decks worth some money but I'm not as curious about them as i am with one deck in particular.  It is a 1915 squeezers number 35 from London about the same time as the triplets came out, " the only real competition against the squeezers".
Info wise this is all I've been able to find, I'm wondering about rarity, when they stopped being produced. I'm just missing the actual box, but still all 52 cards and jokers if not mistaken. I'm not wanting to handle them more than absolutely needed. Any and all info reguarding worth and the like would be wonderful. Quality wise for age and all i would rate it lower than it actually is but they would be between a 6 and an 8, very limited damage. Pictures avalible upon request.

Pictures are really needed to evaluate your find.  Keep the file size of each photo below 1,000 Kb - the forum can't receive image files larger than that.  If you need to reduce file size, use image editing software to decrease the resolution.

[Adamkelly]

Hey, guys. Great forum!! First time poster.

I have this vintage set of playing cards - I know nothing about them. We’re given to my mother in the 60’s by her friend who had inherited them from their father... mint condition, full deck, gorgeous illustrations on every card but no original box, unfortunathely... but have been in a protective plastic shell since we got them all those years back...

Does anyone know anything about them? Age? Brand? Rarity? Anything  really... if you need any other photos i’ll happily oblige .

Thanks,

[Don Boyer]

Hey, guys. Great forum!! First time poster.

I have this vintage set of playing cards - I know nothing about them. We’re given to my mother in the 60’s by her friend who had inherited them from their father... mint condition, full deck, gorgeous illustrations on every card but no original box, unfortunathely... but have been in a protective plastic shell since we got them all those years back...

Does anyone know anything about them? Age? Brand? Rarity? Anything  really... if you need any other photos i’ll happily oblige .

Thanks,

Showing the Ace of Spades and the Jokers might be helpful in identifying the deck for you.

[Adamkelly]

Edit: okay, so I did a reverse image search and found out a little... Company seems to be a German manufacturer; Coeur... these came out in the 50’s it would seem - designed by Walter Krauss... the plastic box is, actually, also original...

I found a cpl other decks online all of which carried Coeur branding on one of the Jokers - mine don’t have any branding at all?

[Adamkelly]

You guys are an engaging bunch, huh?! 😂😂😂😂

Here’s a free tip... if you want to grow your community - humour the new people who stop by... some of us may have ended up engaging over the longer term... unfortunately, in this case, now we’ll never know... best of luck - hopefully you guys rediscover why you wanted a forum in the first place .

[Worst Bower]

You guys are an engaging bunch, huh?! 😂😂😂😂

Here’s a free tip... if you want to grow your community - humour the new people who stop by... some of us may have ended up engaging over the longer term... unfortunately, in this case, now we’ll never know... best of luck - hopefully you guys rediscover why you wanted a forum in the first place .

Walter Kraus (1908-85) is a famous East German card designer. He worked for Spielkartenfabrik Altenburg GmbH. This company was bought by Cartamundi in 2002 and merged with another subsidiary called Altenburger und Stralsunder Spielkarten (ASS). Your particular deck is called "Sweetheart No. 7011" and was designed in 1956.

Here is your deck: http://a.trionfi.eu/WWPCM/decks06/d04591/d04591.htm

[Chuqii]

So here's a beat up mini deck I picked up on a flyer based on the back design.  What I'm trying to determine is if this is an NYCCC Elf deck or some other NYCCC small deck.  Hochman says NYCCC only made one small deck, the Elf deck, but lists is measurements as 1 15/16" x 2 15/16".  This deck measures 1 15/16" x 2 13/16" or 2 3/4".  Anyone out there have an Elf deck like this one, or have a different one that they can measure?  Thanks for the help.

[Don Boyer]

So here's a beat up mini deck I picked up on a flyer based on the back design.  What I'm trying to determine is if this is an NYCCC Elf deck or some other NYCCC small deck.  Hochman says NYCCC only made one small deck, the Elf deck, but lists is measurements as 1 15/16" x 2 15/16".  This deck measures 1 15/16" x 2 13/16" or 2 3/4".  Anyone out there have an Elf deck like this one, or have a different one that they can measure?  Thanks for the help.

It's not impossible that the cards were either inaccurately cut at the factory or that someone has trimmed them over the years to eliminate foxing, tears, etc.  I know trimming is a common practice used in certain types of ephemera collectibles, particularly those made of paper - comic books and baseball cards come to mind.  It's also possible that cutting inaccuracies might have slipped past "quality control" (or whatever passed for it back then) because it was a deck made for and sold mostly to children, thus they didn't think they'd be too fussy about the quality.  It's especially possible if the company only made a single brand of miniatures - it was likely not a mainstay of the business and they might have not bothered with proper maintenance of the cutting die in an effort to churn them out fast and cheaply.

You guys are an engaging bunch, huh?! 😂😂😂😂

Here’s a free tip... if you want to grow your community - humour the new people who stop by... some of us may have ended up engaging over the longer term... unfortunately, in this case, now we’ll never know... best of luck - hopefully you guys rediscover why you wanted a forum in the first place .

You'll have to forgive us for not having an answer immediately ready when you responded.  Our membership largely consists of two categories of collectors - the bulk of them on the forum are more interested in and knowledgeable about modern decks than vintage or antique, while a select crew are more up on the older decks.  The select crew I'm referring to are in the minority at the moment, though their numbers are growing.  There's also a little "cross-pollination" taking place, with each group sharing knowledge, taking interest in and learning more about the other.

[skinny]

Anyone out there have an Elf deck like this one, or have a different one that they can measure?  Thanks for the help.

I have red and blue Elf decks. Mine are the same size you describe. The cards are absolutely 2 13/16".

Quick side note--the tuck is 2 15/16". Pic attached.

[Chuqii]

Thanks for the pics and info, Skinny.  Looks like mine is an Elf deck.