Brief History of Alf Cooke's Playing Cards

British Playing Cards • Universal Playing Card Company Limited • Alf Cooke Limited

Alf Cooke was an important producer of playing cards and card games in the UK during the period 1920-1970. The company had been founded in 1866 by Alf Cooke, in Leeds, as a general printer. Playing cards were first produced under the name of 'British Playing Cards' during the years 1920-25 with unusual court card designs. These may have been a forerunner of 'Universal Playing Card Company Limited' who commenced producing playing cards in c.1925. There is some stylistic similarity between the two.

The Universal Playing Card Co. Ltd became the sole supplier of playing cards to Woolworths under the ‘New Bond’ brand name. They also produced luxury sets with gold edges for the stationery and cigarette card markets. The court cards were printed in either 3 or 4 colours, red, yellow and black, or with the addition of blue,  see example →

During the 1930s an attractive range of cards was produced for Denmark, Iceland and Romania.

Above: four court cards from A/S Emil Jensen's “Warburg's Luxus Bridgekort” designed by Barbara McDonald and printed by Universal Playing Card Co. Ltd in c.1930.

'Alf Cooke Limited', with 'Universal Playing Card Co' as a subtitle, appeared on the Aces of Spades from around 1950 onwards, until the business was taken over by the Amalgamated Playing Card Company Ltd, that was then a subsidiary part of Waddingtons, in 1971. The stock and machinery were transferred to Waddingtons and the production of Alf Cooke playing cards ceased. Over the years, Alf Cooke Limited produced a colourful range of standard English playing cards with many pictorial back series, fortune-telling and tarot cards, as well as card games for children and adults.

Above: Crown Point Works, Alf Cooke's playing card factory in Leeds (UK) which is now a listed building.

Above: general view of the Playing Card department.

Universal Playing Card Co. Ltd also published packs specially prepared for magicians and conjurers. These packs included cards of slightly different sizes, packs with multiple copies of the same card, cards with backs or faces on both sides, etc.

Above: special pack of playing cards for magicians in which half the cards in the pack are identical Sevens of Spades.

Aces of Spades 1925-1970

Above: the four commonest Alf Cooke Aces of Spades: 1. Universal Playing Card Co. Ltd (1925-30); 2. Universal Playing Card Co. (1930-50); 3. Alf Cooke Limited (1950-70); 4; Special Ace for L.G. Sloan Ltd, London (1930s). There were other variants of these Aces, and some anonymous Aces  see example →

Other Productions

References: Goodall, Michael: ‘Alf Cooke Ltd: Printer and Playing-Card Maker’ in The Playing-Card, journal of the International Playing-Card Society, Volume 31 No.4, Jan/Feb 2003, pp.157-170.