April 7

Every time I look at this deck I can't help thinking of the Dondorf Baronesse pattern. Different figures, but the same rich dresses and hair styles. I guess the designer of this deck was inspired by the well known Dondorf pattern. Today's lockdown deck was printed in fine chromolithography and published as Krukow's Luxus Spillekort No. 253. In Ali's catalogue it's referred to as Luxus Spillekort No 240. His reference is Jensen 9-16. Now that I have that catalogue too I checked that number and Jensen describes it as Danske Spillekort No 240 Luxus Lhombre. That last word explains the difference in numbers for this deck. For the game of Hombre only 40 cards are required. My deck is a deck of 53 cards (52+j), hence 240 and 253. Jensen didn't give a date, Ali dates it as c1920.
I hadn't noticed it, but Paul Simons pointed out that the joker is printed over a 6 of hearts. It's not really visible until you tilt the card a bit towards a light source.