My Joker Taxonomy

Here's how the jokers are organized. I tried alphabetical but they all start with J. I tried by color but ... and so here’s my system.

There are ten sections: animals, art, Christmas, entertainment cartoony, real people,  jesters, musical, travel, ads, and topsy turvy. Each section has subsections. Some of the subsections have sub-subsections. When a joker could count in 2 or more places (ie a topsy joker with Mickey Mouse), I have rules for which takes precedence.

Todays count: 5,392.😏 (Click to see the details, Dec 2019).

This organization or taxonomy keeps evolving.  Many sections are now on the website. But they are maybe not current. I update my collection daily and my website much less often.  I recently started taking a historical view of the American jokers: if that interests you, start with this article about Dougherty, he arrived in Brooklyn in the 1800s and became a famous (and rich!) playing card manufacturer. 

I present the taxonomy largely in alphabetical order .

1. Animal Jokers 



Animals: Flyers - Bee Boy

1. Cats  or  Dogs 
2. Flyers: Bees, Birds, Owls, Dragons etc 
3. Horses , zebras, donkeys ...
4. Monkeys, bears, and others with paws 
5. Animals with antlers, horns, and tusks
6. Reptiles, amphibians, sea creatures  
2. Art and Artsy Jokers
1. Beautiful art jokers including flowers, fruit, mermaids
2. Card-themed Jokers (YES, this is intentional) 
3. Mystical, deathly, and devils. Pirates too.
4. Masks
5. Statues 



Bicycle - Unicycle

3. Christmas Jokers including angels and cherubs
4. Entertainment Jokers: Animated
1. Cartoons: Peanuts, Betty Boop,  Alice In Wonderland  
2. SuperHeros  
3. Harry Potter Entertainment: 
   
4. Anime
5. Real People
1. Politicians: 
2. Star Wars
3. Movie Stars
4. Musicians. There's an Elvis section.
5. Comedians
6. Historical and contemporary American. Plus an Americana section.
7. Historical European
8. Plain people jokers (not celebrities)
9. Pin Up Girlie Glamour Jokers (ie erotica and porn). Now split into bikini girls (the essentials covered), illustrations, old fashioned, Asian, and harder core.
10. Sports Jokers: Golf, Baseball, Football (American), 
6. Jesters (people but not celebrities)
1. Dancing with or without jesters wands 
2. Performing with cards or without cards 
3. Juggling things 

   

   Juggling Jesters

4. Juggling cards  
1. Scatterman variations
5. Sitting - Forward vs Sideways
6. Standing Jesters 
7. Head Shots or Busts. On a stick, heads, hands no wand, hand with a wand  
8. Fighters! ie Jokers with swords, etc
9. Clown Jokers 
7. Musical Jokers - Note this excludes real musicians which are in the real people section.
1. Stringed Instruments 
2. Wind Instruments
3. Percussion and 
4. Ensemble Trios
8. Travel Jokers (outdated post from 2017)
1. Vehicles
1. Bicycle Jokers (Unicycles too)
2. American places and Americana (different than American people). Congress Jokers 
1. American Scenery Jokers
3. Non US Places
4. Maps
5. International people types
6. Chinese
9. Ads: 
1. Casinos 
2. Cigarettes, Drink, Desserts  97 + 18
3. Coca Cola Jokers   34    cars 35
4. Public Interest Messages
5. Logo type jokers, Geometric Designs 162
6. Ads   63      Text based jokers 150
10. Topsy Turvy - This has subsections that mirror the overall organization. The big ones are:
1. Animals - 40
2. Card Themed - 52
3. Music - 35
4. Ladies - 9
5. jester 65
6. people -61
7. things - 32

Thoughts? Comments?

Real People: Actors

These jokers are real people but not comedians, musicians (including Elvis), politicians, sports figures, pin up erotic jokers, or ordinary people, they have their own sections (long ago, there was just the real people section).

Marilyn Monroe Jokers

The backs of Marilyn Monroe Jokers

Astute readers will notice that this MM joker was in backwards in the photographs of full pages below:

Back of the joker, Frontal of the diva

Real People, Actor Jokers. Mostly Actresses

The Backs of the Real People Actor Jokers

What to look at next? Let me suggest: 

Comedians - waiting to be photoed

Musicians (including Elvis), 

Politicians, 

sports figures

pin up erotic jokers,

Ordinary people, - waiting to be photoed

(long ago, there was just the real people section).

Monkey Jokers (Animals Miscellaneous)

I LOVE Monkey Jokers. I've grouped them with the bears and other cute furry animals.  There are other animal sections on cats, dogs, horses, flyers,  watery reptilian things, and antlers, horns, and tusks.

This first two jokers are from the  Bicycle deck: Sideshow Freaks. I think this is a contemporary deck (circa 2019).

These jokers are from the Bicycle Monkey King deck, also I think published in 2019.

This is one of my favorites since I like monkeys and there are only a few jokers where the jesters wand does not have the jester's own head. In this case, it's a human held by a monkey.  (I designed a joker with a cat and mouse holding jester wands with each others heads on it, topsy turvy)

The monkey in this picture interestingly enough had a previous role as the character for advertising for Monkey Brand Soap.  No, you could not make this stuff up.  Check out this advertisement from the 1880s including the clever poem: 

Here's a page of nine monkey jokers. Three are gorillas. Two are monkeys holding people on their wands.  One monkey is taking care of the genital of another. Very civilized, eh?

Bears! 

 Monkeys. Of course, whenever I hear of golden monkeys, I think of the Golden Compass and the daemon of that scary lady.

I'm a little behind on my evolutionary history, is there still a missing link?  Would any of these jokers help explain the missing link?

There's a lot of excitement and confusion with these monkeys. Otherwise polite people have squealed when they saw the two monkeys in the middle row climbing a tree!

Here's a mess of furry animals. Why is the rabbit coming out of the egg? Who are the little folk and what are they going to do with their acorn hammers? And what about the two modern versions where it's a witch or pink rabbit coming out, attacked by a ray gun or awaited by a turtle respectively?

These are not in the monkey section, should they be?

This monkey joker is in the Topsy Turvy Joker Section where there is an animal section.

The two monkey jokers here are in the political people section since they feature George Bush junior.

These last two jokers do have monkeys but they are in the performing tricks section. 

If you're on a mobile device, you can't see the index on the side which has all the different types of jokers. Here's a quick sampling...

Cat and Dog Jokers 
Standing jokers 
Jokers who are dancing
Jokers doing tricks or performing.
Jokers who are juggling.

Jokers who are simply a head or head and torso.

Girlie and erotic jokers.

Sitting Jokers

The sitting joker section got a little too large so now it's split into two types of sitting jokers: front facing and side facing. Here's a simple visual so you can see the difference...

Sideways sitting jokers.  The first subsection of the sideways jokers has the crescent moon theme.

The first one is a historical joke, the very cool old Moon Fairy. This Moon Fairy joker was the joker on one of the first Congress decks that the USPC published, in 1895 (I'm not sure that this is an original Moon Fairy although it does seem to match the example from Hoffman' Card Encyclopedia on page 87.)

Moon Fairy Joker

 For all of you who like to know that some superior being is up there watching us, here's the joker that is keeping track of us.

Betty Boop is quite the character and we're grateful to have her posing on the moon for a joker.   I have a whole article about the Betty Boop joker, Betty Boop, and where she belongs in the joker collection.

This next jokers comes from China and is called OwlMan.  There are many variations of Owlman as you can see below.

Here is the sideways section of the sitting joker section. There are 53 different ones (10/19/2019).

Front facing sitting jokers.  The first subsection of the sideways jokers has the drinking theme.

This next seated fellow, Rambler, could have some historical significance. He could be a National Card Co of Indianapolis and NY joerk, NU& #22 created in 1885 or 1890 P 111 Hochman. Or he could be a modern repro. In any case, he has adorably chubby cheeks and a devoted dog.

There are nine pages plus a single of these forward facing jokers. So a total of 55. (yes, there are a few inconsistencies....it's a work in progress....). We'll start with the sitting and drinking jokers which go onto the second page.

On this second page, we transition from drinking sitting jokers to jokers sitting on balls or globes.

More jokers on balls....

And now, some cross-legged jokers, I think these are a Piatnek design.

These cross legged jokers are by John Worthington I believe.

Most of this next page features a joker called Throney, a name given to them by Dan Nordquist.

Below , I share a few samples of the agony of decision-making. Where to put jokers that could fit in multiple categories? The ones below are not in the sitting section although they could be.

The first one is in the animal joker section, equestrian (ie horses) subsection. He could also have been put in the musical string section or the sitting section.

This joker of the three imps probably dates from 1927. It's an old US Playing Card Joker. It features the Palmer Cox Brownies. They are in the jokers about playing card section.

These crescent moon jokers are in the crescent moon subsection of the topsy turvy section. Weird, I know. (Yes, one pair of topsy turvy crescent moon jokers do seem to be in both sections, just noticed it...)

These next few are from the death and mystical section of jokers.

 She is in the sports joker section, sitting on a driver.  There's a case for her as a sitter or as a pin-up.

The Little Mermaid from Denmark is neither in the sitting section, the nudie section, nor the travel section. She is in the joker statues section.

This last seated joker is seated in the musical joker section, string subsection. 

This post updates the 2017 sitting joker article.

What to look at next, I suggest the:

Christmas Jokers

Clown Jokers or

Alice in Wonderland Jokers.