47: Welch’s postcards and De La Rue’s redrawing
There are a number of court card designs that have never actually been produced as cards. It's a shame some of them never were.
J. Welch produced a large number of postcards around the turn of the twentieth century. One set showed a young woman holding a hand of cards on one half and the other half was a playing card. The cards she is holding are those of De La Rue (see the image of the full postcard below) and there are a few number cards, with and without indices. But there's a full set of court cards, which have clearly been designed specially for the postcard firm. They would have made a splendid pack of cards!
Here's a slideshow of the full postcards with the De la Rue ace of spades clearly showing on the king of spades.
Even De La Rue tried to redesign their courts in 1933, but only two were drawn and so they were never printed. These were part of a number of designs by Edmund Dulac.
Interestingly, though, the Crown court cards of an unusual 5-suit bridge pack by De La Rue have similar design features, even though they are not traditional figures of the English pattern at all.
Thanks to Paul Symons for the scan.
By Ken Lodge
United Kingdom • Member since May 14, 2012
I'm Ken Lodge and have been collecting playing cards since I was about eighteen months old (1945). I am also a trained academic, so I can observe and analyze reasonably well. I've applied these analytical techniques over a long period of time to the study of playing cards and have managed to assemble a large amount of information about them, especially those of the standard English pattern. About Ken Lodge →
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