Illuminated Playing Cards, c.1865

Facsimile edition of Andrew Dougherty's Illuminated deck of c.1865. See the Information cards►

Above: cards from facsimile edition of Andrew Dougherty's Illuminated deck of c.1865, published by U.S. Games Systems, Inc., and described as 'Civil War Illuminated Poker Deck'. The cards are illuminated with gold ink to recreate the look of the original cards. 52 cards + 3 information cards in slip case. The court cards are inspired by the designs of De La Rue, rather than those issued earlier during the Coughtry & Dougherty partnership. The name 'Excelsior' at the top of the Ace of Spades was a label given to decks during the no indices era, until around 1880.

Illuminated decks were also published by Lawrence & Cohen in c.1863.

Note: information regarding the classification and relatedness of the variants of the standard English pattern comes mostly from Ken Lodge's work (see bibliography).

By Simon Wintle

Member since February 01, 1996

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Curator and editor of the World of Playing Cards since 1996. He is a former committee member of the IPCS and was graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal for many years. He has lived at various times in Chile, England and Wales and is currently living in Extremadura, Spain. Simon's first limited edition pack of playing cards was a replica of a seventeenth century traditional English pack, which he produced from woodblocks and stencils.