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.

 

December 2024
We have always collected decks for their designs and although we have added some standard
patterned along the way as well, more than 90% of our collection were non-standard decks.
Of course Miriam and I didn't always have the same taste, so there's a wide variety of style
and technique in the decks from our collection.
Although most collectors know that my favorite printing technique is chromolithography, 
this month I'll show a deck, in which another favorite printing technique is used, but one
that isn't often used on playing cards: stipple engraving on copper. This technique was
also used in several Cotta transformation decks.
Cotta printed/published Almanacs and probably other illustrated books too.
And so did the printer/publisher of this deck, commonly referred to as.........

The first thing I do when a transformation deck has been received is to take Albert Field's book of Transformation Playing Cards and this time I would like to quote Mr. Field's opening sentence of the chapter about this deck. "One of the most artistic and imaginative transformation packs was published in London by Rudolph Ackermann and was titled Pictorial Cards". And I couldn't agree more. However, the publication was done as 13 sheets with 4 cards each. Between January 1818 and January 1819 these sheets were added to issues #25 - 37 of the monthly magazine, that Mr. Ackermann published as "Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashion etc." Each sheet showed one card from each suit, so it would take one year and one month to get a complete deck. Now, I'm not particularly fond of uncut sheets. The only one I have is of a Can Can deck, but that's framed and on a wall. So owning 13 smaller sheets was never of interest to me, how beautiful the artwork may be, and I  was happy to see that someone had taken the trouble of cutting up the sheets into an actual deck. It was offered at an auction of a part of the collection of Chris Rayner. I've met Chris at several IPCS conventions and had dinner with him & Sylvia, Gejus & Ina and Arno & Jetty only a few months before his untimely demise. I don't think Chris would have cut up the sheets, but I can picture him buying this pre-cut deck, just because of the fantastic artwork. I felt the same attraction when I saw it on offer.

Back to the sheets now. The first 4 sheets were accompanied in Mr. Ackermann's magazine by a short story, titled "Beatrice, or the Fracas". Some of the cards from these sheets can be seen as illustrations to this short story. Hence the name that's usually used by collectors: Beatrice.
A more important point in Field's description of this deck is that the Beatrice sheets have also been published in Austria, France and the US. The Austrian and French publications are easy to distinguish as the court cards have no background. However, the sheets that were published by C. Bartlett from New York as "Pictorial Playing Cards" in 1833 are for me probably harder to distinguish, as all designs have a background, but Field mentions that "there is no difficulty distinguishing them from Mr. Ackermann's cards. The Bartlett cards are colored very crudely with garish blocks of color that detract greatly from the beauty of the designs". 

So who did design these fine detailed scenes? Field mentions that Ackermann stated that the artist was from Vienna. The Austrian version of the sheets was published by H. F. Müller, but he wasn't the artist. In Field's book the artist remains unnamed. Just by chance the Ackermann sheets were on offer in the latest catalogue (#86) of Cartorama, which I received mid December. Jean's descriptions of his decks is usually well researched and in his description of the sheets he gives the name of Matthäus Loder, Vienna (1781 - 1828) as designer. So I'll take his word for this.
Now it's time to enjoy the designs and for that I've scanned all the cards at 150%.


 


CLICK THE ACE TO SEE THE PIP CARDS OF THAT SUIT

 

 


When finding a cut deck one can never be sure that it isn't a composed deck, with cards taken from different sheets. There are differences in the tones of red used in cards from those suits, as seen clearly on the pip cards. Although in the Field book the shown sheets are pictured in b/w, I've compared the tones of red of each sheet with those of the cards on that sheet and they all seem to match with only one exception. So these differences can be explained from the different tones of red, which were used for the red suits in each published sheet. They were hand coloured, so the tones of red may differ per sheet.
Another question is the value of a cut deck. Should it be less than that of the uncut sheets? For some collectors that may be an issue, but for me it's not. I bought the deck for it's artistic value.