Playing Card Collectors

[Bill Gosling]

With 15 members in this group, are all of you playing card collectors? I have been gathering decks since 1972 when a friend suggested it as a fun and available collectible. I now have over 3,000 decks from around the world. I collect for different faces, and also related printed material on cards such as advertisememnts, and published books but only on the history of playing cards.

I'd be interested in comments from others in this group about their particular interest in playing cards and whether they are collectors or not. Bill Gosling



Bill

[Cliff Aliperti]

Hi Bill,

I mentioned it in a post somewhere within this group, my answer would be no, but I will collect any playing cards featuring movie stars on them, and as you surely know there are a few. I guess I'm kind of a sub-niche of the niche.

Thanks, Cliff

[Bill Gosling]

Cliff, as I review my duplicate decks I'll look for ones with movie stars on them for you. There are many if you include the tie-ins with television programs and movies spun off from them. There are a whole series of James Bond decks, for instance.

How many decks do you have thuse far?

Bill

[Cliff Aliperti]

Hi Bill,

Honestly, I'm really doing this mostly for the resale, though I do tend to think of my webpages as my collection. Doing this for a living, it's really the only way I can afford to collect!

I'm mostly interested in earlier material with probably 95% of my purchases one particular deck, the 1916 MJ Moriarty cards, which have several variations. I've also handled this early theatre deck a few times, from c.1903 Craddock's Medicated Blue Soap (sorry about that webpage, wow, I really need to reformat that!). There are a few others I've seen in other auctions, but have yet to be able to get my hands on them. Oh wait, found one other, and again, sorry, it's one of my older style (ugly) web pages, the 50's Maple Leaf cards from Holland. They're about as late as a go.

I'm not familiar with the terminology inside the hobby, but decks such as those are my primary interest--where each card depicts a different star. Really find them a fascinating collectible!

Thanks, Cliff

[ed parent]

new member to the group. i play alot of texas holdum and met one player at a table who collected playing cards . i started doing research on line and found it very interesting and started going to flea markets , tag sales and thrift shops. in two years time i must have over 2000 decks of cards and a assortment of poker chips, card boxes and poker chip sets. i have found some really old decks , early 1900 in great shape. i enjoy the research as much as finding the decks. ED