I just picked up a few weeks ago and I had a few questions if anyone would be able the clarify
According to the Hochman, this deck includes the 7's through aces and each of the normal suits. The deck was sold in sets of either 24 or 32 card decks.
As you can see by the picture, I have only the 7's, 10's, royalty, and aces. However, I have 2 of each, giving me 48 cards. Was it actually made like this at some point or do I have two 24 card decks? Also, I should point out that the back is the later butterfly back. The date code does appear on the bottom, dating the deck around the 1920's. I'm very confused.
I skimmed the rules of Skat, the German version (as opposed to Scat, a very different American game) and it uses German-suited cards ranging from 7-10 inclusive, with three courts and an ace for each suit, totaling 32 cards in a Skat deck. You probably have the remains of two identically-backed Skat decks, perhaps for some unique game the deck's former owner(-s) once played. Note how one of the Aces of Leaves is significantly more faded than the other - it was probably at the top of the deck, face-up, while the deck sat on a shelf somewhere exposed to sunlight!
When seeing the aces I could clearly tell it was a deck targeted to German-Americans and German immigrants - there's a lot of flag/bunting motif in there based on the US flag. The German writing on the Ace of Acorns looked like it might be the name of a German company that USPC teamed with to print the design, but no, it's translation to English is "United States Playing Cards"! The word on the Ace of Leaves atop the USPC Spade doesn't translate from German, but that could simply be due to my own unfamiliarity with the ornate German calligraphic typeface - the "S" in Skat doesn't even resemble an S to me.
Don't put too much faith into the numbers and letter on the Ace of Leaves. It does appear to read "4421Z", and the style of the indices
might indicate a manufacture year of 1919, assuming the Z is indeed the year code, but it's been pointed out to me before that the code, when seen on older decks, generally only works when you find just one letter followed by exactly four numbers, whereas this one has the numbers first. Maybe it's a date code, maybe it isn't - I couldn't say either way.
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