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Aside from being used as a gaming device in parlor games, playing cards were also use as a practical platform for representing life's rudimentary facts, a memory aid, teaching and research tool for condensing knowledge.
Playing cards can served as records of social history, depicting how political figures, cultural touchstones and historical events were regarded in their time. As in the admiring caricatures of the Kennedy clan in the Kennedy Kards distributed in 1963.
Playing cards also served as advertising for a particular product or services, fortunetelling tool, erotica and souvenirs. Lately it has been used by prison inmates in the hopes of getting tips to solve cold case crimes.
Many countries and cultures around the world have a major or minor hand in the evolution of the playing cards today:
1. As early as 10th century in China a domino like paper form emerged
2. Italians handpainted playing cards with utmost details and superb artistic skills.
3. Germans learned how to engraved the cards for mass production and reduction of the costs.
4. The French incorporated the Queen in the previously all male court cards. Also they changed the suits from coins ,cups, staves and swords to red color diamonds and hearts and black spades and clubs. Obviously the French suit system is what we use today globally.
5. The Americans incorporated the Joker originally called The Best Bower in 1870.
These are some of the themes or areas you might be interested in collecting playing cards.
1. Collect from one single manufacturer of playing cards e.g. Bee, Bicycle etc.
2. Advertising decks especially if the business it advertised was off the market a long time ago.
3. Magician cards, these are specially designed cards to help the performer stage an optical illusion.
4. Playing cards that are cross-collectibles e.g Disney, Coca Cola, Star wars, American-Indian Memorabilia as in a deck called " Indians of the Southwest" sold at auction for $500.
5. Playing Cards of different sizes and shapes.
6. Playing cards with artistically and intricately designed backs.
7. Transformation decks, which have suit symbols in elaborate designs, like concealing a heart in a face or club in the shape of a bonnet.
8. Collecting only Jokers from varieties of decks.
Collect what pleases you. That's the cardinal rule of collecting.
To find out more collectible items always visit Rare Antiques Collectibles and Memorabilia.
