D "WORLD" XPO - 4

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Here are three fav' jokers from Tom Klein from the Netherlands. Although he argued that he would need more space to show all his favourite jokers, he limited his contribution to these 3 jokers. Tom explains: "these jokers are among my favourites and I don't think they are frequently seen. The first one I swapped with a nice lady from Iceland, the second one was published in Dubai and the last one in Thailand."

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Another contribution from the Netherlands: Marti Snellenberg send an email with 2 pics attached. He wrote....

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A contribution by José Luiz Pagliari from Brazil. It's an antique joker.

This is the information that José Luiz added to the picture:
The deck's name is "Infantil" and the courts have the Wüst house design. It is patience-sized and made around 1910 by Albino Gonçalvez & Co., the company that originated COPAG.

And there's a reason.........
"I send you a scan of a joker that I never see anywhere, it was given to me by my grandfather in the late 1940's, I think 1948-1949. On that time he had a Delhaize store in Belgium and I think the coffee Cordon Rouge was made for Delhaize only? This joker means much to me because it's the only thing I have left from my grandfather".

Yvon also asked us if we had more information about the joker. We asked our joker collecting friends for help and Yvette Laurent from Brussels has found out that the joker was made in Turnhout. She added that the "vîtes-vous" is in French a hardly ever used way to say "did you see". The whole sentence says "did you ever see a funnier joker than...".
Should any visitor have further information about maker or date, please let us know.

Ronald Kruijmel from the Netherlands was encouraged to send in this great old joker.

Or as Ronald explains......

Tom van Berkum from the Netherlands is the son of the late Gerrit van Berkum, who had been collecting playing cards since the 1970's. Tom himself has been collecting jokers for a long time now too and we finally managed to get him to send in 3 of his favourite jokers.

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Tom: "Although I would like to send in a top 100, I have confided me to the max of 3 and that wasn't an easy job!

Another contribution from the Netherlands: Rina Tervoort has been collecting jokers for many years now and we often meet her at collectors bourses. She is always interested in information about her jokers, maker, country, era etc. and often has intriguing questions for us. We've often asked her, but now she too has finally sent us her favourite............

The joker came with a short explanation from Rina: "Finally plucked up courage to show you my favourite. It's a commonly known joker, that can also be found in opposite colouring, but I don't find its features as marked as this one. This joker is my favourite, because it's the prototype of a joker, who's plays tricks and pranks. He clearly splits his sides with laughing about his own jokes."

Hugo Diependaele from Belgium is a collector of playing cards and he found some very attractive jokers in his decks.

And Hugo gave the following information about these jokers:

In December we received scans of 6 jokers, again from Hugo Diependaele. We have limited the maximum per contribution to 3 jokers and have reserved the right to make our choice if more are send in. This time we chose the following three......

A contribution from Marché Noecker. He's relatively new to joker collecting, but has found our site and wants to share his fav's with us here.

About the first one Marché wrote:
"On my Facebook page I caption this card: 'Ghoulish Ünd Mischievous Imps... Vermicious Knids wit Devilish Grins'. One of my first actual purchases of a Joker card and certainly the first that I was obsessed enough to pay an inconceivable $12.50 to have as my own. I was incredibly thrilled upon it's arrival, holding it in my hands, giddy...and introduced to the wild world of collecting joker cards (for real!)."
and about the second one a simple: "....and this one still absolutely pleases me to look at. Can't explain it so u won't."

And Marché Noecker ends his contribution with: "I have much fun with this whole thing and am privy to keeping it fun and amusing for self and all else. I invite you to check in on my collection at facebook.com/jokerstealer. A new Joker is posted each and every day!!!"

From Ronald Kruijmel, a Dutch collector, we received the following joker......

We thought that his choice would need some explaining. And so did Ronald:

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Judy Dawson has already contributed some wonderful antique American jokers to this world xpo (see page 3), but we're glad to put up an other joker, that we received from her. She always adds the available information too and this time Judy wrote:

"I thought you might like this Joker – It is from an ad deck made c1910 by Andrew Dougherty which advertises Cocoa Naptha Soap made by the Los Angeles Soap Company."

Sometimes we may welcome a new collector here, at least that is how Alan Brunt from England described himself. He sent in these two jokers.

There was no further explanation as to why these are his favorite ones, but instead Alan asked us if we could tell where the first joker came from and what age it would have. We have experienced this before. A beginning joker collector with a small collection, that holds one or more jokers that are completely new to us, never seen before. This is the case here too. So if there's anyone who knows where this first joker comes from, please contact us and we'll be happy to convey the information to Alan.

From Spain we received the image of an older joker. It was send in by Valentin G. Karamanliev as his favourite joker. In general a familiar layout and design, but as always it's in the details and then it turns out to be quite different than any that we've seen before. Nice detail is that this jolly joker shuts his ears by putting a finger on them.

We always like to know a little more about a joker, so Valentin's additional information was well appreciated here. He wrote "Joker from Spain. Simeon Durá, Valencia. "Fortuna", Nº103 deck playing cards. Poker cards for export to U.S. and Canada. 1893-1932.", but Valentin also wrote: "I do not know the year of printing of this joker". 
Still, we value all the provided information and of course the joker itself too.

A few months later we received 2 new emails from Valentin. The first gave us information about a joker that we show in the "Solid Seconds 2007" xpo. We've added that there and want to thank Valentin here. 

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The second email had this joker attached. The text just said: "This is my second favorite joker from unknown 52 Pin-up playing cards deck". Besides the joker there was a picture of the backdesign, showing a bare breasted women sitting along a shore holding a huge pearl. They were nicely designed backs, but we can see why Valentin appreciated the joker much more. He has a catchy laugh, although a collector with coulrophobia would probably have a different perception.

Laurent Pemeant is a longtime French joker collector and he sent us this joker. He described this extra joker as "Fox-Kruger 1960".

A few days later we received another email from Laurent, this time accompanied by another 5 of his favourite jokers. However, when we started this section, we have decided to show a maximum of 3 jokers per collector per entry and when more than 3 jokers are received we will decide which 3 will be shown here. We decided to see his contributions as two separate entries and here's our choice from the second one:

The first one obviously comes from the same deck as the previous sent joker. The second one is a rare Grimaud joker, that we had never seen before, and the third joker comes from a deck that was made by the Buronia Spielkartenfabrik GmbH. That German manufacturer was active between 1931 and 1938 and resided in Kaufbeuren. All together a very nice collection, so a big THANKS to Laurent!

Markku Peltola (artist) from Finland has send us an email and wrote "I've attached a set of Jokers I found when cleaning. Not a serious collector of them, but very attracted to. The pin-up Joker is from a recent 2015 UK deck - not a collectors item yet, but a nice green costume which made me choose this card. Rounded card from a Finnish "Turun Linna" deck. Third one is from 1970's, nostalgic for me, off the deck I used to play a lot as a child."

A Brazilian joker this time. José-Luiz Pagliari is a collector of playing cards and not specifically of jokers. But sometimes he sends us a special and rare joker, even in Brazil. This time he has send us a joker from a deck made by Castelo in Sao Joao del Rei, Brazil, around 1938.

John Edelson from the US has a site "Amused by jokers am I" (see links list), where he shows his jokers. But he also had the opportunity to design his own jokers, with a little help from a professional graphic designer to realize his ideas.

Allen Porter is a faithful contributor in the Joker Collectors Club group on Facebook. Allen wrote "Love this joker. Looks like an Alf Cook made for the Australian market. That’s all I know about this joker. Hope you can add more to its description if its included with the favourites page on DXPO."
Well, the joker has been added, but infowise there's not much I can add. The banner, the Joker type font and the joker's head all reflect Alf Cook's Universal Playing Card company, but I had never seen a sitting version before and certainly not an advertising one. I checked Miriam's folders "Sitting" and "Series" and I was right: no sitting one.
Dating the joker is difficult. The standard standing version was roughly in use between 1920 and 1970. So maybe the label of the bottle would help. It reads "Romalo rouge Sparkling Burgundy". Some research in Australian wines learned that the French winemaker Edmond Mazure is regarded as the first to create the Australian Sparkling Burgundy at the Auldana vineyard in the early 1890's. He later managed his own wine cellars under the Romalo name. In the early 1920's his chosen successor Hurtle Walker carried on the Romalo label. But with the joker in 4 corners, I would rather date it as 1930's.