February 2009

 

The main events were the meeting of the BEJC in Brussels and the monthly flea market in Utrecht. Both brought us some nice decks for our collection. Returning from Brussels we visited someone who had contacted us and had a small collection for sale. As there were more than 25% new decks for us, we bought the whole lot. It brought us 7 interesting old decks. And of course we couldn't resist some auctions at Ebay. So there were plenty of new decks for our collection to choose from this month and that always makes the choice more difficult.

There were two interesting editions by small Dutch printers, an early SN Export deck, two nice Hodges decks and a cute deck by Wolfgang Behrend and they all made it to the short list too. However, this time our decision wasn't based on importance or design, but rather on sentimental grounds...........

We have both lived in Amsterdam for most of our life and so , although we are not fan enough to go to the stadium, we have a soft spot for the FC Ajax.  This football club from Amsterdam has a highly respected reputation and has supplied all the big clubs in Europe with players and (later) coaches. In this season the club isn't doing as well as the supporters may want: currently Ajax is on the 3rd place in our major league. And the present coach, depicted on the left here, has recently been called a "pannenkoek" (pancake) in public by one of the supporters. That word has caught on and now it follows the coach wherever he goes.

The incident shows that things change rather quickly in the world of football. Being a great player doesn't automatically mean that you're a great coach too and old glory doesn't last long if there's no present one. Those are the lessons, which this coach is learning right now.

But Marco van Basten, that's the name of the coach, should still deserve credit for his role in Dutch football history. So this month we want to help him keep up his spirit, so we chose a deck where he's still an "Ace".........

and let him be a winner once again!

 

The Kings show presidents of Italian football clubs and one of them also made it to president of Italy, although a highly controversial one. Even the artist gives him a devil's tail here. The King of Clubs is also the president of the Fiat concern. The Queens represent an Italian actress, anchorwoman, model/TV-hostess and even an Italian female football player, who had been very successful in the national team. The Jacks show Italian football players from different teams.

 

The deck came to us in a plastic box, which was not original, so there was no box to get any information from. However, we're pretty sure that this deck was printed by Modiano from Milan, Italy, and was obviously published for Morositas, probably in 1994. That was the only season that all the players on the aces played in the Italian first league. All were respected there as great players and we're proud that two of them are Dutch. 

 

 

The deck consists of 52 cards, 2 jokers and an extra card. The latter are shown here below. Both jokers show football players, who were not known for their correct behavior on the field. Bruno's nickname was "the animal".

All the 2's, 4's, 6's and 7's have the same  text.
From Gustavo Orlando-Zon we received the following additional information:
Guerin Sportivo is the most important football and sport Italian magazine since 1912.
This deck was offered as a gadget to the readers and sponsored by Morositas, producer of celebrated Italian candies. 

 

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