Black Pack Playing Cards - Fournier circa 1980's

[S. Carey]

Anyone ever just have old decks handed to you because people know you collect cards? This just happened to me and it came with a rather interesting story.

Just recently someone sent me a letter from London with a deck of cards called Black Pack. The letter tells the story of a man named Alasdair MacGaw (he has since passed away). According to the letter, about 25 years ago Alasdair discovered that casinos only used decks of playing cards once. Since London is multicultural he believed that black people were alienated by seeing white faces on every set of paying cards. His idea was to have a set of cards with black faces on the Kings, Queens and Jacks.

He had this set made up in a print run of only 200 and then tried selling them to all the casinos in London. However, he hit a wall because he could not afford a large enough print run to make the deck cost low enough for the casinos to buy them.

At any rate, the deck was printed by Fournier in the late 80's. It is a pinnacle sized deck and this is apparently the only one left in existence. It is marked as a first edition, has some cool design elements and is overall a nice deck. It is a smooth finish and is still rather snappy but I do not want to mess with it too much.

It probably has more sentimental value to me as it was sent to me with a personal letter describing the story behind the deck. I do not think anyone is looking for this deck or even knows it existed but I thought the forum members would enjoy it. Also, if Kickstarter were around back then, I feel like he would have been on it trying to get rich. 

[S. Carey]

another image with the Fournier on the 4.

[Don Boyer]

another image with the Fournier on the 4.

I think that's some kind of requirement under Spanish law or something.  All the Fournier decks I've seen have a "maker's mark" on the Four of Clubs.  It's probably similar to what the British did with Aces of Spades, printing them with markings to indicate that tax was paid on the deck, or in the US, when we had tax stamps sealing decks.  I know in the US the state tax on cards still exists in the state of Alabama, but I don't think we still have card taxes anywhere else.

[athomas16]

Interesting.  Thanks for posting.

[CARTORAMA]

Hi all,
The Black Pack was designed in 1992 (see the signature on the Ace of Spades) and most probably produced the same year.
It is an interesting story you are telling, and it would be nice if true, but it is evidently rather difficult to verify. What is certain is that your deck is not „the only one left in existence“ as CARTORAMA offered that deck in its last catalog (for 25 Euro, which is about USD35). But you are right when you say that it is a cool deck. The text card that belongs to the pack says „For Personal FREEDOM and Social JUSTICE“: who wouldn’t want that?
The mention of the maker’s name, Fournier, on the Four of Clubs (on Spanish-suited cards from Spain, i.e. the ones with Swords, Coins and so on, it would be the Five of Swords) is not necessarily connected with a tax: stamp duty was cancelled in Spain in 1979. Which does not mean that the tax itself was abolished. In Germany the obligation to apply a tax stamp on a card of each pack for sale (usually the Ace of Hearts) was dropped by the Nazi government in 1939 (they needed personal to pull triggers instead of stamping playing cards), but the tax on playing cards disappeared only in 1982 (on the topic of duty stamps, see http://www.endebrock.de/pc-taxes.html)

[Don Boyer]

The mention of the maker’s name, Fournier, on the Four of Clubs (on Spanish-suited cards from Spain, i.e. the ones with Swords, Coins and so on, it would be the Five of Swords) is not necessarily connected with a tax: stamp duty was cancelled in Spain in 1979. Which does not mean that the tax itself was abolished. In Germany the obligation to apply a tax stamp on a card of each pack for sale (usually the Ace of Hearts) was dropped by the Nazi government in 1939 (they needed personal to pull triggers instead of stamping playing cards), but the tax on playing cards disappeared only in 1982 (on the topic of duty stamps, see http://www.endebrock.de/pc-taxes.html)

Oh, I'm in agreement about the tax being no more.  But the "maker's mark" is still carried on as a tradition of sorts, likely because the consumers have become so accustomed to seeing it.

It's very much like how when the Federal playing card tax was abolished in the US in 1965, rather than doing without seals altogether, most manufacturers in operation at the time created company seals out of tradition.  Many of the early company seals were very similar in design to the tax stamps, though they tended to have simpler graphics, probably due to the cost of the processes used by the Bureau of Printing and Engraving to make tax stamps.

The tradition of the ornate Ace of Spades almost certainly began with the requirements of the British Government forcing card printers to include markings on it to indicate the tax on cards had been paid.  The US hasn't been a Crown colony for over two centuries, but we still make ornate Aces of Spades out of tradition.

[CARTORAMA]

Oh yes, that is exactly as you say.
In the same order of things, some playing card makers in Germany and Austria were so disturbed after the end of the tax stamp that they created ersatz stamps. They probably felt that the Ace of Hearts looked too naked without a stamp so that they printed something similar in that place. This practice came to an end a few years after WW2 when new structures were established. Democratic this time, but nonetheless fiscal (in 1949 in Germany together with the new currency Deutsche Mark).