Fake ‘Four Seasons’ pattern
More than just a copy, this is a fake!
Above: fake Piatnik box including a fake ‘Certified Quality’ logo - (click to zoom).
According to Piatnik, this pack is most definitely a pirated version of the Hungarian Four Seasons pattern. There are so many things wrong with this pack that it is unfair even to link Piatnik’s name with it. At first sight, the box looks genuine but rather small for a Four Seasons pack and too glossy to be from Piatnik. On opening the box one finds that the cards have a completely different back design (and colour) from the one printed on the reverse of the box. The quality of the printing is extremely poor, with poor registration of the gaudy colours. Some of the colours are strange, particularly the bluish purple employed on certain cards. All the human faces are white, with very limited facial features. The Piatnik logo which would normally appear on the 7 of Bells is absent. On the box it states that there are 33 cards, whereas there are in fact only 32 – the extra card which Piatnik often includes is again missing. All in all, not a proper facsimile, but what people in the UK would call “a bugger’s muddle”!
So where was this pack actually made? China? Probably not, since even the Chinese make better packs than this. More likely a small local printer trying to profit from the good name and reputation of Piatnik.
Above: fake ‘Four Seasons’ pattern by an anonymous printer. 32 cards in tuck box. Size 56 x 86 mm. Purchased in Romania, April 2017.
Tax Evation and Counterfeit Goods
Many London shops are under investigation by Westminster city council for tax evasion and selling counterfeit goods. Read more by Adam Hug in The Guardian: Where did all those US sweet shops in London come from? The problem is, we don’t know►
By Roddy Somerville
France • Member since May 31, 2022 • Contact
Roddy started collecting stamps on his 8th birthday. In 1977 he joined the newly formed playing-card department at Stanley Gibbons in London before setting up his own business in Edinburgh four years later. His collecting interests include playing cards, postcards, stamps (especially playing cards on stamps) and sugar wrappers. He is a Past President of the Scottish Philatelic Society, a former Chairman of the IPCS, a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards and Curator of the WCMPC’s collection of playing cards. He lives near Toulouse in France.
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