JANUARY 2021

A disappointing month for this section. I did buy 3 decks, but none of them were ever issued with a joker. So I decided to browse through Miriam's collection again and see which joker would catch my eye. 
I took out the "Women" holder and the first thing that I noticed was that more than 70% of all the jokers were pin-up's or had an erotic content. But no pornographic jokers, Miriam didn't like them. 

From the other 30% I chose this cute girl. Maybe it was the red and yellow, maybe the suit signs, maybe that mysterious number, but I fell for her. There was a b/w version next to it.
I had to look it up in the Hochman, page by page, but I found out that this joker was used by the Arrow Playing Cards Co. (since the mid 1930's known as the ARRCO Playing Cards).

Anyway, a nice one to start the year with.

Emotionally it was a difficult month, especially in the week around the 11th. It's been two years now since Miriam died, but this year the loss felt more intense. I guess the lockdown and curfew didn't really help either to lift the spirit.
But life goes on and I'm happy that I have a hobby to keep me busy. The lockdown series on Facebook is one way, but I also follow eBay France and the Dutch auction site Marktplaats.

Through the latter I got in contact with a couple, that used to have a stall at the same collectors bourses as we attended a long time ago. It was nice to renew that contact and it brought a few decks as well. To deal with on eBay, but there was one that had 2 (similar) jokers which I hadn't seen before. It's a simple souvenir deck with 52 pictures from Kenya, so not really interesting to keep. But the joker was unusual, showing a white man, dancing in traditional headwear and dress, holding a joker baton. As said..... unusual. 

I have decided to buy one joker each month, in which there are no interesting jokers in the decks that I bought that month. This month there was only one deck. It had a joker, even an interesting one, but as I chose the deck as Deck of the Month that joker will be shown there.

So I bought this one on eBay. The seller was a Dutch collector and the joker also is from Dutch origine. The back shows a 3 of hearts, so one could wonder if it's a real joker. Well, it is. The deck from which it comes is a special deck for doing magic tricks. It was developed, printed and published by Mulder from Amsterdam in 1967. There are 16 special cards, among them are a few 3 of hearts, but only one with a joker on the other side. The deck is rarely seen, so needless to say that you won't find this joker easily. Enjoy!

I had actually gone out to buy a joker, which I thought would be a nice one for this spot here. I had bought it on the Dutch auction sit and the seller lived nearby, so I had agreed to pick it up. But when I got there he showed me several other albums full of jokers. I couldn't help it, but I bought a few jokers by the Universal Playing Card Company from Japan and this one.
It's not a new one, I have several versions of this joker. They were made by the Speelkaartenfabriek Nederland from Amsterdam from around 1916 until the mid 1920's. This is an older one, with the horseshoes in the corners, and it probably dates from around 1918. We already had this joker's back design in blue, but this one has the red version. So why still buy this joker? Well, the focus of our collection has always been the production of the SN company. So we also have playing card games by this company, a children's puzzle and different kinds of paraphernalia. Among those are two lithographic stones and one of them has the design for this (red and blue) back.
So the joker that I was originally going to buy, didn't make it to this spot, but this one is more than a good replacement.

The jokers of the month from.....