Thursday, June 22, 2017

It's Just a Number!

VocabularySpellingCity Joker
VocabularySpellingCity Joker
Does anyone really care about personal metrics?  I suspect that nobody really cares about your weight or shoe size.   I don't think anybody really cares about your IQ, SAT score, or your GPA.  Or about your net worth or speed on the 100 yard dash.

With that said, I'd like to share one of my numbers: 7,346 as of 2/2021 (5392 on 12/2019: 3,231 on 9/18: 2,039 on 6/2017). That's my number, I just counted. Notice that in four years, the collection grew three and half times in size. I added more than a thousand a year.  At this rate....

 Of course, I'll get more so my number is a moving target.  A few weeks before, my number was smaller. In a few weeks more, it should be larger.

Sometimes, to my chagrin, I discover duplicate jokers which means that I've counted one joker twice so then it goes down

Note: Dec 2018, it's more like 3200 now. I expect it to go up every year.

 Sellers, feel free to contact me. I'm in a buying mood....

GoNoodle Playing Care Joker
GoNoodle Playing Care Joker



While there are many categories of jokers,  my favorite are the topsy-turvy jokers. There are 71 of the topsy turvy jokers. (My least favorite are the clown jokers but that's a different article).

Topsy Turvy Jokers - There is no upside down!


GoNoodle Playing Care Joker
SpellingCity Jokers


As I mentioned, the topsy turvy jokers are my favorites.  A topsy turvy jokers are those that are, like so many playing cards, symmetrical along the X axis.  Or more simply, they are the same upside down as right side up. Or there is no way for them to be upside down.  Here's 71 of them as they appear in my joker album.



















This next page is one of  my favorite pages in the entire joker collection.  Why?  I like the topsy turvies generally and specifically, the ones on the top left and right were designed by me.  Here's the story, I run a company in the educational technology industry and I have a small budget for SWAG. One year, I decided to create our own deck of jokers.  The characters come from our products.  So there is Ed Mouse, the Educational Mouse.   There is also the Penguin from Word-O-Rama. And lastly, there is the very famous cat and mouse from VocabularySpellingCity's Hangman game (actually, it's HangMouse). They also appear in Sound It Out.


Favorite Jokers
Favorite Jokers


These last two pages are the pages that I haven't yet filled up with nine jokers.






How did I count and how do I organize them?

Since I have categories, I counted each of my 23 major categories.   Here's the count of the first ten categories. This says that in the first catalog, the first binder of jokers is animals and there are 134 different animal jokers.


First Binder of Jokers, Major Categories



Here is the total count of the joker collections. It's maybe a little small to see.



Here's the count of the other major album of jokers:



And that is the first public viewing of my joker organizational system.  Looking forward, I am aware of some issues in this system of organizing playing card jokers and I'll surely be refining it. So much to look forward to it.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Clown Jokers

I have a section in my collection with clown jokers. Can I be honest? I don't really like clown jokers. I think jokers should have jesters on them.  I think clowns are a mistake, a poor substitute.

But, my collection has gown and my views of changed. Come look at the updated article from February 2021 about Clown Jokers.

With that said, I thought I would share a few of the more interesting clown jokers with you.

Scary Joker Clown 
Scary Joker Clown

Clowns & Jokers Together: Why?

Clowns & Jokers Together: Why?

Clowns & Jokers Together: Why?


Why does this clown hold a goose?




Here's an update on the joker collection. Oct 12, 2018.
 And for your pleasure, it's a video of the clown jokers.




Below are all the pages as of today in the clown section of the joker collection.  I count 87 different jokers. There are four pages with nine jokers plus five on the next page.  The pages have a minor themes. For instance, the first one below is mostly clowns juggling, balancing, or generally performing.





Clown Jokers Juggling & Balancing



More Cycling Clown Jokers







The jokers on the next page are pretty common. Common enough so he has a name: Clowny! There's the standard Clowny and some variations including Clowny on black.

The guitar playing joker was first made by King Press c1937.  It's listed as MSN51 King Press, P159 of Hochman. He's memorialized as 4B in the Joker Poster.




Clowns on Jokers Performing & Juggling

This set of jokers has more of a bicycling theme and since they are clowns, it's more a cycling theme with most of them on unicycles. It might not surprise you to know that I have a unicycle in the garage but I cannot balance on it. However, I am a good juggler.  (see me juggling).

This last shot is a jester, a spooky jester face. I included him so you can see that a jester wears a jester hat. Jokers have pointed or roundish clown hats. The distinction is usually pretty clear.

Spooky Clown Head Joker
Spooky Clown Head Joker

This article was updated Sept 21, 2017. As part of that, I updated my clown joker count from 45 to 87. I've been working hard this summer to grow and improve my collection. Astute observers will notice that I also improved my photography although I still feel that I have a lot of need to improve.

Next, take a look at the:
Pretty Erotic Girlie Jokers
Bicycle (and Unicycle) Jokers
Flying Animal (Bees, Birds, Dragons) Jokers