"THE OLD SCHOOL"

GERMAN DECKS with SCENIC ACES

The German cardmakers have always been known for their quality cards. Not only of the cards themselves, but also in design. It is not a surprise that these cardmakers found new markets in other countries. We assume that for these export decks special aces have been designed, showing local towns and views that would be familiar or appeal to the public in these foreign countries. But maybe these decks were also sold in Germany as a sort of early "souvenir" decks. Decks with German scenic aces were probably only sold within Germany.

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According to the jack of Spades this deck was made by Christian Heinrich Reuter from Nürnberg, Germany. The deck consists of 32 cards. The design on the courts is similar to the Wüst House Pattern 1, which was created around 1875.

The deck is depicted in the Wüst catalogue (Paul Simon&Martin Shaw, 2006) on page 104 as a "Wüst design by other factories" and dated as ca. 1912. However there is a difference with our deck. The deck from the catalogue has no indices on the courts, but numbers on the numbercards. Our deck has neither indices nor numbers.
The deck from the catalogue was dated by the tax stamp. Tax stamps however are not always a reliable source for dating, as Peter Endebrock explains on his site about tax stamps. In the König, Dame Bube Band 2 (Berlin, 2002) the short text about the factory of Ch. H. Reuter (page 328) says that the factory probably existed until the 1870's.  

So this is the dating dilemma that has lead to the 18?? for this deck. 

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