Thackeray's Transformation Playing Cards

Unbeknownst to me at the time but I've posted a William Makepeace Thackeray transformation card previously. He'd conceived of the idea of such a set of cards while on board the steamer Canada en route to the United States in 1852. He soon grew bored of the project and 21 of them were published posthumously in 1876 as part of The Orphan of Pimlico which his daughter edited and refined with the original drawings apparently getting a face-lift for the new publication. Additional cards which were more racy and racist in nature were seemingly excluded. Had they not been of such a nature they likely would have had an official release in the general card market as Thackeray had envisioned upon conception of the deck, though it was seemingly a disjointed project. While the whimsical nature doesn't appeal to me the vibrant colors contrasted with the starkness of the black ink definitely does. I shall endeavor to post the entire published deck as well as various miscellaneous found cards.

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A Card Within a Card: 3 Jokers and Theirs

As ruminated upon in a previous post here are three more Jokers who are depicted wielding other cards within their own. The first one is openly presenting the Ace of Spades while concealing three others with a mere Diamond peeking out over one corner of the trumvirate. On the second Joker, from a Scandinavian deck, The King of Diamonds is figured prominently as the Joker leans upon it. His poppet Joker is also holding an Ace of Hearts. What it all means would depend on the manufacturer and artist, I suppose. The last specimen from Longfield Games features an Ace of Spades as the Joker stands upon a depiction of the world as a globe which seems almost 3/4 there but not quite whole. All interpretations of this and the preceding ones would be mere speculation and without knowing the artist and his source inspiration it would mainly be a stab into the void. Which is basically what this entire blog consists of.

Tart Rhymes

I came across this excellent booklet from The U. S. Playing Card Co. on Instagram and then tracked down its source to eBay where I took advantage of the generous photos on the listing and saved them in e-book form because it's the right thing to do for posterity's sake. The booklets contains a very short sequence of rhymes that make for one bizarre folktale that wouldn't cut it in today's cancel culture. Also displayed in the small booklet are some card packs produced by the company which is very helpful towards dating the cards for novices who don't have access to the company's historical records.

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