Fake ‘Four Seasons’ pattern

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.

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