DECK OF THE MONTH

Just like the "Joker of the Month" in the Jokers section we will select a "Deck of the Month" from all the decks that we could add to our collection during that month. It will be what we consider our best find. We've started this section in April 2007 and without any doubt we can say here that over the years there will be antique, vintage and modern decks shown on these pages. Age, design and value of the chosen decks may be very different each time.

I've been busy sorting out all kinds of things except playing cards this month. Miriam had always taken care of the administration here and I had trouble finding all the different papers for dealing with the administrative aftermath of her demise. So there wasn't any time to proceed with entering the rest of the Baltic decks in our collection. Or maybe my head wasn't in the right mind set either. Anyway, also no new decks were bought.
I didn't want to present another Baltic deck here, so I went through the other finds of last year, came across this one and thought it would make a nice change. So now "for something completely different"..............

About a year ago I bought this lot on the French eBay. It's a complete set of 32 advertising cards, published by Louit Frères & Co from Bordeaux to advertise their chocolate on the front of each card and probably their latest product, "Tapioca-Louit", on the backs. These kind of cards were very popular in France during the first quarter of the 20th century and many companies have published whole series of them. Only some of them have playing cards on them. They were added to or inserted in their products by different companies and complete series could be collected by buying a lot of chocolate, coffee or whatever their product was. Or swapping of course.

The mainly advertised product probably was chocolate, as we've heard them nicknamed "chocolate cards" by some collectors or sellers. The cards are usually somewhat larger than playing cards. The cards from this set measure about 70 by 110 mm. The set could be used for fortune telling. Each card shows a different playing card with a caption to indicate the meaning. In this set the meaning is illustrated in a comical way by a caricatural drawing of a fitting situation. The cards were lithographically printed by the Imprimerie Courbe - Rouiet from Dole-du-Jura. The playing cards have the standard French pattern, so they were not the reason to present this set here. But those cute drawings were!


Bad woman	Business man	Bad person


Powerful man and benefactor	Young man to marry	Good and sensible woman


Fast forward		Joy at home
CLICK ANY ACE TO SEE ALL THE PIP CARDS
Big news		Joy and a nice gift


Excellent results	Flattery, courtiers	Great success in the world


Gossip	Dangerous man	The postman