March 18

Ken Lodge is an avid collector and scholar of the English/International pattern. In the last Playing Card (IPCS) he wrote a review of a book about the use of that pattern in Germany. Besides his well known position about Dondorf's Birma Cards and their double-ended equivalent, he wrote about a separate group of idiosyncratic types next to his own classification and that of the author of the basic patterns. Well, I haven't seen or read the book, but I'm pretty sure that this deck here will be there in that separate group. Just like the Birma cards, immediately reminding of an English pattern, but without any of the pattern rules.
Today's deck was printed by Wezel & Naumann from Leipzig and published as "Feinste Wenau Pokerkarten No. 252" around 1925. The company logo is on the AS and on the backs as well. My dislike of the English pattern is known, but some of the designs have such unusual details that I've kept the deck..... for now.