October 2009
Of course the main event was the joint convention of the 52+Joker and the IPCS in Toronto in the beginning of this month. Joop had a great time there and returned with great stories and some great decks too. But that wasn't the only source for new decks this month. Miriam went to the Dutch general collectors bourse in Utrecht, which was held the same weekend as the joint convention. Only a few days after his return from Toronto there was the monthly flea market in Utrecht and a week later the meeting of the Dutch playing card collectors in Nieuwerbrug. The flea market didn't bring any interesting decks, but Miriam had already found some interesting new decks at the general collectors bourse and in Nieuwerbrug we found some nice new Belgian editions. And at the last work day of the month the mailman brought us the new Asescoin deck for 2009 from Spain, so it was a tough choice again this month.
But there can only be one winner and this month we chose a deck that we had found in Nieuwerbrug. It's almost certain that the deck was printed by Carta Mundi, probably earlier this year. It was published by Chaumet, a famous jeweler and watch maker from Paris. Of course we have contacted the Chaumet company with some questions about this deck, but haven't had an answer yet. One of the questions was about the name of the designer, because it was the interesting style in design that was decisive for our choice this month.
ENJOY!
Without eyes, nose and a facial contour the faces on the courts are only suggested by a mouth and attributes like hats, glasses, masks or moustaches. Using an absence of contours is an intriguing technique, for which placing the attributes and arms in the right spot is absolutely crucial. Here that's done in an excellent way.
The jewelry shown on the aces comes from Chaumet's collection "Liens de Chaumet".
The Kings all wear crowns and the Queens tiara's. But also smaller jewelries, like rings, cufflinks are integrated in the designs.
The jewelry from the "Liens de Chaumet" collection were also used in the suit symbols on the pips.
The deck consists of 52 cards and 2 jokers. It didn't come
with the original box, so there's no further information about the deck
available at this moment.
As soon as we've heard from the Chaumet company and
hopefully have some more information to share, we'll update this page.
PS
As said, our deck didn't come in the original box. When we
had send an email to the Chaumet company and had inquired about the deck, we had
mentioned our name and postal address too. Three weeks went by without an answer
from Chaumet, but then the mailman delivered a package from France and we were
pleasantly surprised to find a complete Chaumet doubledeck inside. The
sliding box is silver-gray and on top it only says "Chaumet, Paris".
Inside are two decks, but the set comes with a silver-gray carton, with a short
explicative text on both sides -one in French and one in English- which answered
most of our questions. Here's the English version........
And another big difference with our deck: these decks have solid silver edges!