Februari 28

Today is the last day of the month and by the time that I post today's lockdown deck it will be the first of next month. Some of you may know that I also do the monthly update of my DXPO site on the first of each month. One of the regular updates is the new Deck of the Month and February brings the 167th deck to show in that xpo. And it's not the only xpo, so a lot of fine decks are already on display on my site and that limits the choice for the lockdown decks. I don't want present a deck twice and this lockdown series will end up as an xpo on my site as soon as the lockdown is over.
So a clever move today: I will show the same deck here as well as Deck of the Month, but in a different edition. The deck here was printed by the Valsts Papiru Spiestuve un Naudas Kaltuve from Riga and published in Latvia as "Spelu Kartis No. 5" since 1923. The edition here dates from around 1930 and has the red cross stamp on the ace of hearts. The Deck of the Month is at least 10 years younger.

Just like I'm not happy with the air-cushion finish of a lot of the modern decks, I'm even less impressed by the used linen finish here. It leaves white lines
across the designs, quite visibly. And enlarged the flaws in the "woven" linen are obvious.