American President Lines
American President Lines shipping souvenir playing cards, early to mid-1950s.
Following the demise in August 1938 of the Dollar Shipping Company, the United States Maritime Commission assumed control and in the same year the company was renamed as "American President Lines”. During the late 1940s and 1950s APL offered a round-the-world passenger service, advertising their ships as "your American hotel abroad".
This pack (actually published as a boxed double set) was probably produced during the early to mid-1950s as the card back appears to show the SS President Wilson (with Chinese fishermen in the foreground). This ship operated on a Pacific Ocean route, traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles, Hawaii, or the far east before returning back to San Francisco. The ship remained in service until 1960. With the allure of air travel and the growth of containerisation the company's passenger services steadily declined throughout the 1960s, and by 1973, the last APL liner, the SS President Wilson, completed her final round-the-world trip and was sold off.
The cards show 52 black-and-white rectangular photos of places and monuments (presumably included in the APL cruises) in Hawaii, Cuba, Hong Kong, Panama, Bangkok, Egypt, Singapore, Japan and San Francisco. The jokers present the APL house flag. See the box►
Above: American President Lines souvenir playing cards, probably produced during the early to mid-1950s.
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022 • Contact
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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