Coolidge playing cards
Coolidge playing cards featuring dogs playing poker, Aquarius, USA, 2008.
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge (1844 – 1934) was an American artist, mainly known for the series of sixteen oil paintings created for Brown & Bigelow (then primarily a producer of advertising calendars) in the early decades of the 20th century. All of these paintings featured anthropomorphic dogs, including the nine paintings of Dogs Playing Poker.
This poker-size pack was published in 2008 by Aquarius, under license from DeMarco Productions of Las Vegas, Nevada. The court cards and jokers depict scenes from Coolidge’s paintings, while the pip cards are arranged in a non-standard pattern against the vivid green background intended to resemble the green baize of the gambling table.
Note: Through his company DeMarco Productions, Vincent J. DeMarco has been licensing the artist's work since 1995, when he reached an agreement with Coolidge's daughter, Marcella Coolidge.
Above: Coolidge playing cards, USA, 2008.
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022
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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