D Xpo  THE CHINESE "OWL-MAN"

This is one of the jokers of which we have had some variations already in our collection since a long time. But during our trip to China we found several new variations. As regular visitors will know......we love variations! So now it's time to put some on xpo here. We named this joker "the owl-man", because in all the first versions he had an owl sitting on his foot. We believe that this joker was originally made by a Chinese manufacturer that later grew out to be or was taken over by the Ninbao Three A Group Co. Ltd., one of China's largest playing cards manufacturers.

But let's start with the simple ones, that show the basic design.

Then some extra's were added, like the 4 suitsigns.

On these four the name and logo (AAA) of the Ninbao Three A Group were added.

   This one was probably made by AAA for the American Trojan Casino's.

Upto now all jokers show the same typefont, with the characteristic R on the end. Here below that same typefont is used, but now different names of manufactures can be found on the jokers and the hat takes on different positions too or is replaced by a completely different hat. The owl has also been replaced by different other birds or creatures. Our guess is that here other Chinese manufacturers have "copied" the original design in the same Chinese way that is used to make "Calvin Kiein" pants or "Pamu" sneekers.

In the last series a completely different typefont is used, although the design bears a good resemblance with the original. They are probably copies too.

And the last 2 are most likely made by copycats too.

Still, it's interesting to see where all this can lead too and therefor we treasure the copies just as much as the originals.