69: My Collection
I thought it might be helpful to other collectors to have an archived version of the catalogue of my collection with illustrations to aid identification and dating. It will only be for standard English cards, but this covers a huge variety of designs and in some cases strange adaptations of the traditional figures. To keep descriptions to a minimum and to avoid uninteresting repetition, I shall not always refer to some basic features of many of the packs, in particular, standard ASs and jokers and back designs, unless they are of particular interest. I will illustrate a design by Owen Jones, but not always the backs of De La Rue Crown packs or Waddington's No.1, as they tend to be from a restricted range of single-colour designs. Boxes I may show, again if they are of particular interest. There won't be room to illustrate all the courts of every pack, but I'll choose the most significant ones, for instance to show whether there are six turned courts or not. The reference numbers of the designs are those of my books: The standard English pattern (reprint, 2016) and The British playing card industry 1600-2000: the makers and their products (2017). Any cards marked with an asterisk in the descriptions are missing.
It's a sad fact that most collections have disappeared without any preserved catalogue when their owners have died or given up collecting. The individual items are sold off piecemeal, so it becomes difficult to produce anything after the event. Sylvia Mann's collection is a case in point. Luckily, Paul Bostock has had the forethought to upload (nearly) all his collection onto his website http://plainbacks.com, so collectors can use the resource for their own purposes. So, maybe this present list will be useful in the future.
In the hope that it will be more user-friendly than a simple numerical list, I intend to list the items by maker. In cases where I have few packs by one maker, I will list by country of origin. The lists will be as follows, though they will take a time to organize. As each one is ready, it will be linked to this page in a pdf format, in the same way as the Owen Jones pages were. In some cases I will also place the link on the appropriate blog page.
Australian miscellaneous
Austrian miscellaneous
American miscellaneous
Belgian miscellaneous: click here►
Biermans/Brepols: click here►
Blanchard/Gibson/Hunt/Bancks: click here►
British Playing Cards/Universal/Alf Cooke: click here►
Brotherton/Whitaker/Benda/Perry/Willis: click here►
Chinese/Hong Kong/Taiwan miscellaneous
Creswick: click here►
Dougherty: click here►
James English: click here►
English miscellaneous
English pre-1900
English wood block from smaller makers: click here►
French miscellaneous
German miscellaneous
Hardy click here►
Italian miscellaneous
Llewellyn/Hall/Hall & Bancks: click here►
Mesmaekers/Van Genechten: click here►
Reynolds: click here►