May 26

Today's lockdown deck was printed by the Speelkaartenfabriek Nederland and published in 1933 by J.K. Smits & Sons. This company deals in diamonds, for jewelry as well as industrial use. The deck was designed by Albert Hahn Jr. (alias for Albert Pieter Dijkman) and the kings and jacks show members of the board of the company. The queens are fantasy figures. No real joker was issued with this deck, but there's an extra card.
Although the head office was located in Amsterdam, the company had branches and connections with other companies all over the world. Their names are on the extra card.
The deck was published in an edition of 5000 copies, probably as a present for the personnel of these branches/ business connections, because it's very rarely found in the Netherlands. In 2000 during the combined IPCS/52+J convention in New Haven an American collector came up to us, asked if we were really from the Netherlands and then offered us this deck, in its original box and for a price that we couldn't refuse.