March 24

Putting a sheet back into its holder sometimes makes you notice another deck. Of course the rare, but lovely "XVIII Century" deck caught my eye, but I already show that on my site as Deck of the Month in July 2018 (deck-month-18 and press 07) and try to avoid duplicate images there. So today's lockdown deck is the Russian "Modern" deck, an early lithographically printed edition by the Colour Printing Plant from St. Petersburg, dating from the 1930's. Logo on the AD of the State Playing Card Monopoly. I couldn't find a name of the designer. The attraction of the designs lies in the contrast between the detailed, coloured faces and the roughly sketched dresses. I guess quite "modern" in those days. The deck has been reprinted by the CPP until the 1990's and was published as "Preferance" since 1964, but in the -in offset- reprinted designs the hands and arms were skin-coloured in the same flat tone as the faces. I'm not sure if I would call that an improvement.