JANUARY 2008

It was love at first sight this month! During one of the many strolls along all the stalls at the general collectors fair in Utrecht, our eyes got caught by a simple box that read  "Drechsler's Danske Leksikon Spil". When we opened it, this joker was the first card that we saw. One look at each other was enough......this was going to be the next Joker of the Month! Although there were still about 3 weeks to go, we knew that it would be very hard to beat this one this month and......we were proven right!

A Lexicon deck is not a regular deck of cards. The cards can only be used for this special game. Each card has a large letter and a value in the corner. It's a bit like Scrabble with cards. We've seen different versions of the Lexicon game, but never this Danish one, with such a lovely joker. 

FEBRUARY 2008

This month there was the BEJC meeting in Brussels and usually that's good for lots of new decks and jokers, but we had friends over the night before and it got a little late before they left, so this time Joop went alone and didn't stay that long. The result was a score of 4 new decks and zero jokers. Oh well, next time, when the BEJC celebrates their 20th anniversary (see the "Events"page) the score will hopefully be better again.

But there's always Ebay. This joker came with a deck that was published in Sweden by the organisation of Young Socialdemocrats in 1976. The deck has a non-standard design of the courts, with small caricatures and text in Swedish. All the numbercards have texts too.
The joker shows a caricature of the leader of the Swedish "Centerpartiet", Thorbjörn Fälldin.

MARCH 2008

It was a quiet month in terms of new decks or jokers. We received a nice new pin-up deck, drawn by Rian Vernon, that had some very nice jokers. But they can be seen in the "Pin-Up & Erotica" xpo. 

This time it was the joke that made us choose this joker. It comes from a deck that was published as "Page 3" by The Sun, a British tabloid, in the 1980's. The title refers to the scarcely dressed girls that were always placed on page 3 of this tabloid. Each card of he deck shows a different photo of these girls. So it's a bit odd to find this drawn cartoon as the joker in this otherwise photographic deck.
Still the pun brought a smile to our face and we rewarded that with a place in this gallery.

APRIL 2008

We picked up this joker during the meeting of the Dutch collectors in Nieuwerbrug on April 20th. The meeting was well visited and it's always nice to see the familar faces again. And there were plenty of decks, single backs and jokers on offer in the albums. Of course we found some nice decks for our collection, but we bought some single jokers too.

We bought this month's joker from a Belgian lady and unfortunately that is about all that we can tell you about this joker. It came as a single joker, so there's no reference to be made to a deck. The backdesign shows a stylized bird and the joker has square corners. Still it doesn't look very old. But we liked the design with the "horned one" holding a fine dressed doll.

There were other nice jokers, even ones that came with a deck, that we could discuss here, but still this one came out on top this month.

For the first time I couldn't choose one joker. It had to be two!

Although they actually had arrived in April, I didn't get to see them until my birthday. It was one of his gifts, so this time Joop couldn't disagree with my choice.

The jokers come from Peter Wood's "Goblins and....!" deck and were hand coloured by him. Of course the message was written upon request. Both are signed by Peter on the back.
The deck was published in a limited edition of 25 hand coloured decks and 75 uncoloured. The edition is sold out.

JUNE 2008

Although a sudden illness prevented us from going to Turnhout for the annual Collector Day at the National Playing Card Museum, which is usually a good place to find decks and jokers, we received plenty of interesting decks through the mail this month. Check out the "Deck of the Month" or the Art&Cards Xpo on this site.

But this month's joker came with a doubledeck, that was given to us by friends. They had found it on a local fleamarket. And we were exited, because it was new to us. The deck had funny drawn courts and was apparently made in Italy, but unfortunately the 108 cards had too many from the same denomination and suit in them, while other denominations were missing. We couldn't even make one complete deck! With some sadness in my heart, I disposed of the cards. But of course I kept the jokers. 

And although there were other interesting jokers, we've chosen this cute Italian "Eco Jolly" to be in the spotlight this month. That's the least we could do after I had turned him into an orphan.

JULY 2008

A very slow month, not only for jokers, but also for decks. We didn't have much time to to go card hunting Ebay and we only visited one flea-market. And the last ten days of this month were extremely hot and moist, so there wasn't any appetite to do much at all.

A visit to the flea-market in Utrecht is somehow always rewarding. We never come home with empty hands. Sometimes there's only one or two interesting things to take along, sometimes our small back-pack is filled to the brim. However, this month the score was very modest again.

This joker, as you can see from the extra text, comes from a game. It is called "The Golden Egg" and was made by Chad Valley Co. Ltd from Harborne, England. Probably in the 1950's.