Sailor Jerry Playing Cards
“Sailor Jerry” tattoo flash playing cards, USA.
Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins (1911-1973) established his legendary tattoo parlour in Honolulu in the 1930s and built his reputation tattooing soldiers and sailors in the WWII-era. He was regarded as the undisputed father of American old-school tattoo. Sailor Jerry spiced Navy rum was introduced in 1999 featuring a quintessential Sailor Jerry hula girl on the label to pay homage to Norman “Sailor Jerry” Collins. The aces and court cards all show different Sailor Jerry tattoos, while each suit shows a different tattoo repeated on the 2-10 pip cards. There are two jokers and two information cards►
Above: Sailor Jerry tattoo flash playing cards manufactured by USPCC, c.2011.
• Wikipedia: Sailor Jerry►
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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