DECK OF THE MONTH

Just like the "Joker of the Month" in the Jokers section we will select a "Deck of the Month" from all the decks that we could add to our collection during that month. It will be what we consider our best find. We've started this section in April 2007 and without any doubt we can say here that over the years there will be antique, vintage and modern decks shown on these pages. Age, design and value of the chosen decks may be very different each time.

Nowadays we associate the abbreviation G.P.S. with our navigation system, but in the first edition of our Deck of the Month the G.P.S. on each of the courts and the joker refers to the artist, who created the deck: Gerda Ploug Sarp.

Although I had won 3 decks from the Dudley Ollis collection in the Dominic Winter auction, they didn't arrive in time. So this time the deck had to come from our collection again. That shouldn't be a problem, but every time I have to check and see if the deck hasn't been shown elsewhere on this site.

According to Ali Jerremalm this deck was first published in Denmark around 1930. Printed by L. Levison jr. and published as Heimdal Spillekort Whist No 7770. However, the WWPCM site shows a box with No. 477, which is probably the earliest publication.
However, when I had posted announcement of this Deck of the Month in several Facebook groups about playing cards, a collector from Poland corrected me: "The earliest edition of this deck has number 777 and was released in 1936. The second edition has number 477 and was released in 1938". He referred to an article by Hans Jurgen Hinrup, a Danish collector, which gave even more information about the deck and the artist. Check it out for yourself: Heimdal – Sparfire
The article was written in 2014, so after Ali had published his catalogue of Nordic playing cards.

In 1956 (Braun) the deck was re-published by the VEB Altenburg. The original designs and layout were not changed in any way and the only difference with the first edition is the index of the jack of clubs, a B instead of Kn.

Gerda Ploug Sarp was born in Copenhagen on December 8, 1881. She started a study in painting at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 1903, but soon became known for her illustration work. In 1915 she got a job as illustrator of the Berlingske Tidende, which is the oldest, still existing daily paper of Denmark and one of the eldest newspapers in the world. But besides her steady job there she has illustrated a good number of books, among them some of the greatest Danish novels. She worked for Berlingske until she became 75 in 1956. She died in Copenhagen on May 6, 1968.


title card	original joker	factory joker of VEB Altenburg


factory mark VEB Altenburg	back design
PS
When I checked the file card that Miriam had made for this deck, I saw that we had bought a deck in 1999. A few years later we had found a double deck and sold that first deck. However, Miriam had noted there that that deck had a Danish tax stamp. So I guess we've made a big mistake at that time by selling that deck. It probably was a first edition by Levison jr. Must have missed that Kn on the jacks.