JOKER OF THE MONTH
Started in March 2004, there will be
a new "joker of the month" added to this xpo each month.
The shown joker
presents the best one that came to us in that month.
Each year we'll start with a clean sheet, but previous years will remain on xpo.
*** 2024 ***
JANUARY 2024 For the first time in months I couldn't restrain myself and bought some decks from the collection of the late Dudley Ollis, an English collector with a wonderful collection. A few parts of his collection have already been sold at Dominic Winter auction house and no doubt there's more to come. There was
one lot at the last auction that consisted of 6 decks made by the same
company and with the same title: the Royal National Patriotic playing
cards by William Kimberley from Birmingham. This deck, especially the
first three editions have always been somewhere, not very high, on my wish list, but they are not very
often
seen on offer. Now that the opportunity was there to get all
but one of the different versions, I couldn't resist. |
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FEBRUARY 2024 No
new decks this month, so no jokers to choose from. However, there's
always Miriam's collection to go through. Besides the folders with
sheets she had a vintage -maybe even antique now- American holder with a
joker figure and my cards collection embossed on the red outside cover.
There she had put her special vintage or antique single jokers. During a
meeting here last September three joker collectors had their way in this
holder and a lot of them were sold. But there were some left and I found
this one rather attractive. |
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MARCH 2024 Again
no
new decks this month, so gain I went to Miriam's collection and took out
a random holder. It was the "Women" one, so there were plenty of
scarcely dressed pin-up jokers, but enough more decent ones too. And this
modern joker is one of them. I've always liked the deck. Not only for the nice
Art Nouveau like designs by Otto Benz for the courts and the 3 different
jokers, but also for the chosen colours with nice gold and bronze tones and
delicate red accents. From the three jokers I chose this one, because it's the
only one on which the word joker has been woven into the design so delicately. |
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APRIL 2024 An
oldie from a deck, which was one of the decks I had won in the 52+Joker
auction. It will be used as an addition to the present xpo about the Paris
World Fair of 1900. Almost all the information about the deck can be found
on this joker, exxcept for the printer. The deck is listed in the Hochman as
SX17, but in the text it's mentioned that "the deck is listed in this
chapter, even though it was a foreign fair, as it was made by USPC and likely
published by Tom Jones for sale mainly in the United States". Next
month the joker and all the other cards will be added to the Paris World Fair
xpo. |
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MAY 2024 We
got this joker in 1998 when we bought a fortune telling deck on ebay.com. It
was the only eBay at that time. There was no information given by the seller
and the deck came without the box. It was a non-standard deck, based on the
international pattern, with the fortunes printed in French and English. This
made us conclude that the deck must have been made/published in Canada. We
estimated the date as c1930, based on the back design, which reminded us of an
early Mickey Mouse design. If you want to see the Black Cat deck and the back
design, HERE
is your chance. I've
always liked the deck and especially this joker, but now it's time to say
goodbye to my fav black cat. I will take the deck to Turnhout next week and if
it's not sold there it will be in the Bargains section soon afterwards. |
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JUNE 2024 We all
know what GPS stands for nowadays, but on this joker the GPS at his foot
refers to the name of the artist: Gerda Ploug Sarp. She was born in 1881 and
in 1903 she went to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, where she met her
husband, the painter Otto Sørensen. In 1915 she started working as the
permanent illustrator for the oldest and still existing Danish newspaper, the
Berlingske Tidende, and her employment there lasted until she was 75 years old. But she
has also illustrated some important contemporary Danish novels and c1930 she
designed a deck of cards with this joker, which was originally printed by L.
Levison Jr. and published in Denmark as Heimdal Spillekort No.1777 (hombre: 40
cards+J+ec) or No. 7770 (whist: 52 cards+j+ec). |
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JULY 2024 This month I had to go through several folders with jokers in order to reunite them with the rest of their decks. As I don't expect to buy any decks or single jokers this month, it was a good opportunity to look for possible jokers for this spot. Miriam had 2 folders with "standing" jokers and going through them I found this joker. It looked like a vintage one, but I immediately liked the figure and the fact that, instead of the word joker or corner stars, the 4 suits were added to emphasize that in certain games the card could be used in any suit. Somehow
he looked familiar. I suspected German roots, but after spending some time on
the WWPCM site, it turned out to be a wrong assumption. Maybe Austrian then?
Same result! |
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AUGUST 2024 I
took out Miriam's holder with "heads" this time. It has sheets with
jokers of which only the head is shown, although you can see that an attached
bust is allowed there too. It's
not a particularly rare joker. On the WWPCM site I found many different
versions of this figure, probably because Armanino has produced these decks
until the 1950's. So it's a bit hard to date these jokers, but it could be
that this version is an older one. The dots in the corners are of the older
type. In later editions they were replaced by stars. By his numbering of
the jokers and backs Sacha, who runs the WWPCM site, seems to acknowledge that
too. And also that jokers or decks with two indices or dots are usually older
than the ones with four. Still I hesitate to date this joker as 1910/20's and
that's because the used card feels too smooth and flexible. |
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SEPTEMBER 2024 Over
the years we have had several different old or vintage jokers which advertised
Philips. There's even a joker xpo
of 9 of them, but that was put up in 2004 and it doesn't include this one. Apparently the joker came with a deck for the French market and was probably produced in France. If it was aimed at the Belgian market, the slogan on the back would have been bilingual, with a Flemish translation too. Roughly dating the deck wasn't very difficult, as Philips introduced the mini cassette and voice recorder in 1967. So late 1967 or early 1968 will be a safe choice. |
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Last
month I bought one deck at an auction. It was never issued with a joker, but
the deck also hadn't arrived in time for this update. So I had to go through
Miriam's collection again.
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NOVEMBER 2024 No new decks with jokers again this month, so one from Miriam's collection again. This time an a-select method was used. First I picked a holder and "Standing II" came out of the hat. Then I chose one number under 50 and one under 19. They were 21 and 6, so I went to the 21st sheet and took out the joker that was on the 6th spot of the sheet. It's
a modern one and the back has Federate Life in large red letters against a
pink background with South African Bridge Federation in small white letters
diagonally across. So which flower has this company used? A short research brought a flower that could be stylized into this design and with the common name of Doll's Protea (Latin name: Macledium zeyheri) I'm pretty sure it's the one. |
The jokers of the month from..... |
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2004 | 2010 | 2016 | 2022 |
2005 | 2011 | 2017 | 2023 |
2006 | 2012 | 2018 | |
2007 | 2013 | 2019 | |
2008 | 2014 | 2020 | |
2009 | 2015 | 2021 | |
or back to... | |||
JOKERS |