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This page reviews more new or unusual playing
card designs from around the world.
| Death Playing Cards |  Death Playing CardsP.O.Box 3134 San Luis Obispo, CA 93403 U.S.A.
| Mickey Weedon, President Tobacco, drug and alcohol education (U.S.A.) |
DEATH Playing Cards are designed by Mickey Weedon to foster tobacco, drug and alcohol awareness based on information provided by the American Cancer Society, The National Council on Drug & Alcohol Abuse and other agencies. Two separate but complimentary decks are available:
"Hilarious and creative, yet serious in conveying anti-tobacco messages", these valuable teaching aids, with their macabre characters, are very popular with kids aged 11 years and upwards! At the same time they are unusual in that they have been designed to convey specialised educational information effectively, as well as being suitable for traditional play. All the information on the cards has been gathered from various substance abuse agencies with the aim of alerting young people to the dangers. "The art for my Death Cigarette and Death On Drugs Playing Cards came from traveling to tattoo parlors in California from San Diego to San Francisco. This product was designed based on what I saw the kids getting from the Tobacco and Drug Programs here in California. Unlike brochures or pamphlets that end up in the trash, the playing cards kids keep."[M. Weedon, May 1999] |
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| Each deck contains: 52 cards + 2 Jokers + 1 extra card in tuckbox. Two indices, round corners, 57mm x 87mm. | |
| Death Cigarette Playing Cards.
The two Jokers show a skeleton smoking a cigarette and standing by a tombstone, with the epitaph "This Joker was a smoker" in a Gothic typeface. The typeface used for the card captions is Benguiat, whilst the indices are in a traditional playing card font. |
Death on Drugs Playing Cards.
The two Jokers (different from Death on Cigarettes) show a skeleton wearing a jester's cap and holding a broken caducceus, standing by a tombstone with the epitaph "This Joker was a smoker" in a Gothic typeface. |
 VERDICT: Mr Weedon should be congratulated on
producing these two thoughtful and useful decks of playing cards. Whilst only
two colours have been used throughout the designs (red and black) this is
effective in conveying the grim realities regarding drug abuse and smoking.
Rating: 7/10
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Death Cigarette Playing Cards show 13 different cigarette addicts repeated in each suit series, but with 52 different statistical and anti-smoking messages displayed on every card... which adds up to 52 good reasons not to smoke! The tone of the cards is light hearted, but the underlying message is not.
Death on Drugs Playing cards give 52 Class 'A' reasons against substance abuse. The cards show 13 different drug-taking characters (including an alcoholic) repeated for each suit, but with different captions on every card: Spades give tell-tale signs to look for; Hearts describes the characteristics of the drugs; Clubs warn of the dangers of drug taking and Diamonds list the physical symptoms of abusers.
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MyHandwriting.com
MyHandwriting.com |
 | Bart Baggett, Director HandwritingU.com (U.S.A.) |
| The Grapho-Deck was conceived and designed by Bart Baggett, a handwriting analyst specialising in TV and Radio shows. His deck of cards is designed to be used on social occasions to make Graphology into an entertaining activity. It is accompanied by a special book entitled: "How You Can Analyze Handwriting in Ten Minutes or Less". Bart claims that his deck of cards will get you more attention than any amount of money you spend on clothes, drinks, nose jobs, or flashing a wad of $100 bills... definitely worth considering as a gift to yourself!
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| Each deck contains: 51 cards + 3 extra cards in tuckbox. Round corners, linen finished, high quality cards, 62mm x 88mm. | |
| The Grapho-Deck.
The reverse (see above) is orange/blue, whilst the faces of the cards (see opposite) are in green and black, clearly illustrating the handwriting strokes and giving the psychological interpretation. For example, the 'SECRETIVE' card reads: "Circles within circle letters on the right hand side. The larger the inner loop is, the more secrets this person will withhold from others. If the inner loop is huge, this person will try to avoid giving you a complete answer." | |
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VERDICT: A very pleasant deck to handle, which immediately gives the user a feeling of confidence, and which no doubt will give hours of good fun!
Rating: 6½/10
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Bart Baggett originally designed the Grapho-Deck as a set of flash cards for handwriting analysts. Impressed by how successful they were in the hands of his best friend, he improved the designs and produced an updated edition which can be used by anyone. The deck can easily be used to pick out key traits from a sample of handwriting in a few minutes, even by non-handwriting analysts, and they will amaze their friends.
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Alpha Playing Cards
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 | Tim J Schutz, Director T.J. Games (U.S.A.) |
| Alpha Playing Cards was originally conceived by Tim Schutz around the summer of 1994, as a word game based on Gin Rummy. After making some adjustments, he re-christened it "AlphaRummy 500". "One of the things I wanted was to have about 54 cards in the deck, so I came up with the idea of 2 different vowels on each vowel card, which was a way of getting more vowels into the deck and in a player's hand with less cards. The point value and card count of a letter was based on the frequency the letter was used in the English language." Tim originally designed the cards with all the letters in black, and the points in red, but someone suggested that the vowels be in a different colour. Likewise the back design has seen several re-drawings. Tim has designed several new games for his deck, and other people are also starting to create more games for the deck. "...one lady is working on a game based on Bridge with her friends. They will show me the game once they have perfected it." |
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| Each deck contains: 80 cards (30 vowel cards + 42 consonant cards + 2 wild cards + 6 rule cards)+ in tuckbox. Round corners, 64mm x 89mm. |
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| Alpha Playing Cards
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VERDICT: Very interesting new word game with several innovations not seen in Lexicon and Scrabble! If you like spelling games, this deck is well worth having, and new game variants are always being announced on Tim's website.
Rating: 7/10
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