PIN-UP'S & EROTICA

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This deck was printed through an English printer in China and published by Swedish Cards in February 2011. The company is based in Sweden, but also operates in England. All the cards show artwork by Bengt Holgerson. We would describe his work as photo-graphic. His graphic work leans heavily on his photographic shoots, at least in this deck it does. When we ordered the deck we got in contact with Elke from Swedish Cards. She was very helpful in getting our Ace of Spades signed by Bengt and supplied us with such extensive information about the artist and deck, that we decided to put that on a separate (illustrated) page. Click HERE to read all about the artist and his views on this deck.

So we'll confine us here to what we noticed about this deck and the cards.

The first thing that caught our eye were the suit symbols. They are all placed in a square, the red suits in a black one and the black suits in a white one. So far nothing out of the ordinary, but looking at the Kings the number of them ranges from 1 to 4 per card. This isn't repeated, as the Queens either have 1 or 2, just like the Jacks.

The indices seem to have the same randomness. On the Kings only the word King is added. On the Queens just "Queen", but in the Hearts suit there's a full "Queen of Hearts". And the Jacks are all spelled in full, except for the Jack of Diamonds. He's simply.... "Jack". 

On the aces the true intention of the deck becomes visible: the deck was made for left-handed players. The indices and suits are placed in the right top corner. It was intentionally done by Bengt, who is probably left-handed, to surprise the right-handed players. Because right-handed players fan out the the cards in an opposite way to left-handed players, the indices and suit symbols will not be visible for them on almost all the cards. Exceptions are the Kings of Spades, Hearts and Clubs and the Jack of Spades. But.... even Bengt and other left-handed players will be surprised by most cards. Of the courts the Jacks of Spades and Clubs will not be recognized as such by them either. But........ 

CLICK THE ACES TO SEE THE PIPS PER SUIT

on all but 6 of the pips the indices are spelled and placed horizontally next to the suit symbol. Attempting to fan the cards in a way that enables you to play with the deck produces weird and uncomfortable fans to hold and that goes for left-handed as well as right-handed players. But it's an artist deck and because these decks usually only find their way to collectors of art or playing cards, they are here to enjoy the art and layout, rather than to play with.

The deck was published in a first edition of 50 copies only.

The deck consists of 52 cards and 2 jokers.