Hustling Joe No. 61 (facsimile, 2019)

Above: the ace of spades in the repro pack has a notice: "2019 Reproduction by plyingcarddecks.com & Azured Ox"

Hustling Joe No 61 is a reproduction custom pack aimed at card collectors and card magicians, based on the second edition of the “Hustling Joe No 61” semi-transformation deck originally published by US Playing Card Co. in 1895. Produced by card magician Will Roya, illustrated by Azured Ox, manufactured by USPCC in 2019 in two colours: blue and green (each with a different back design) in a limited edition of 2000 packs of each colour. The blue pack has the original ice skating gnomes back design, the green pack has the frogs design back.

Like the 19th century originals, the reproduction pack is cut to poker width. In addition, the reproduction packs include an additional identical joker, each joker differing only in the colour of the man’s outfit and also a double-back card to further expand the scope for use by card magicians. The designs themselves have been reproduced from originals keeping the same comic images with pips over-printed, though the cards are not gold-edged like the originals.

Each pack is supplied in a colour coordinated box - either blue or green, corresponding to the colour of the backs of the cards inside, and printed with gold ink and sealed with an imitation tax stamp (of a design used between 1894 and 1896) and wrapped in cellophane. Packs are sold either as a pair comprising one pack of each colour; individually or as an uncut sheet.

Above: cards from the 2019 reproduction of “Hustling Joe No 41” semi-transformation deck produced by Will Roya for PlayingCardDecks.com