My Joker Taxonomy

Here's how the jokers are organized. I tried alphabetical but they all start with J... I spoke to other collectors who organized by country and then company and while it's a marvelous system, it couldn't possibly work for me who doesn't know who published what joker and where it came from. I needed a system where I could look at a joker and know where it belongs...Here it is....

Ten sections: animals, art, Christmas, entertainment cartoony, real people,  jesters, musical, travel, ads, and topsy turvy. Most sections has subsections. Some subsections have sub-subsections. When a joker could be put in two or more places (ie a topsy joker with Mickey Mouse), I have rules for which takes precedence (which are listed at the bottom of this article).

1-1-2021 Update: today the  count is 7,456 😏 (Click for previous counts). The collection keeps growing and evolving. All of the sections are now on the website but they are not current. I update my collection weekly and my website less often.  I’ve started an extras for trading section. 

While my collection is by theme, I’ve looked some at jokers other ways. I’ve some historical views of American jokers: examples: Dougherty , ARRCO, or Standard Jokers  Other views : how I frame jokers to put on the wall, whether I have all the jokers from the Joker Poster, and what resources I find useful. I enjoy comments: don’t be shy. 

1. Animal Jokers 



Animals: Flyers - Bee Boy

1. Cats  or  Dogs 
2. Flyers: The Birds and the Bees, Butterflies  & Dragons 
3. Horses , zebras, donkeys, giraffes ...
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.  Art: Traditional art  (ie, there was a canvas or drawing to start with). Digital art
2. flowers, fruit, mermaids
3. Card-themed Jokers (YES, this is intentional) 
4. Mystical, deathly, and devils. Pirates too.
5. Masks
6. Statues 



Bicycle - Unicycle

3. Christmas Jokers with angels and cherubs
4. Entertainment Jokers: Animated
1. Cartoons: Peanuts, Betty Boop,  Alice In Wonderland  
2. SuperHeros  
3. Harry Potter Entertainment: 
   
4. Anime Japanese Jokers
5. Real People
1. Politicians: The binders now distinguish between American & European. Needs updating. Also, the American peoples such as Native Americans, American historical figures etc are in the travel section.
2. Star Wars
3. Movie Stars
4. Musicians. There's an Elvis section.
5. Comedians -TV Personalities Commentators
6. Historical and contemporary American. (There's also an Americana symbols section)
   
   
   
   
7. International:   People of Color, Old Europeans with names,  Old European stereotypes
8. Plain people jokers (not celebrities)
9. Pin Up Girlie Glamour Jokers (ie erotica and porn) is split into bikini girls (the essentials covered), illustrations,  old fashioned,  Asian, and harder core.
10. Sports Jokers: Golf, Baseball, Football (American), 
6. Jester Jokers (not real people or celebrities)
1.  Dancing Jokers  are split into 
1. Dancing jokers with Wands who dance in one of three directions: 
1.  To the Right
2.  Straight ahead 
3.  To the Left
   
2. Dancing Jokers with no wands 
2.  Performers with cards or without cards 
3. Juggling things 

   

   Juggling Jesters

4. Scatterman - The Cartamundi jester
5. Sitting Jokers
1. Sideways: Crescent moons, Bird/Owl Man, Sideways
2. Forward: Sitting Facing Forward or Cross Legged
6. Jesters: Standing jesters with Wands, Walking Jesters with Wands, NO WAND (standing still or walking)
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  
10. Jokers, not jesters, standing (or walking) 
    
7. Musical Jokers - Note this excludes real musicians which are in the real people section.
1. Stringed Instruments 
2. Wind Instruments sans flutes  (the flute players recently split into their own section)
3. Percussion including piano.
4. Musical Ensembles (to keep joker sets together)
8. Travel Jokers (outdated post from 2017)
1. Vehicles. This section is now split into: 
1. Vehicles: Sea & Air, Trains, Cars & Motorcycles 
   
2. Bicycle Jokers, Skater Jokers, Unicycle Jokers  
   
   
   
2. American places and Americana,  Congress Jokers 
1. American Scenery Jokers
2.  American people
3. Cowboys
4. Native Americans
5. People of Color
3. Non US Places
4. Maps
5. Old Europeans with names, Old European stereotypes
6. Chinese Jokers - Acquired Collection, Collected
9. Ads: 
1. Casinos 
2. Cigarettes, Drink,  Desserts and Candy 97 + 18
3. Coca Cola Jokers   34    
4. Cars  35
5. Public Interest Messages, space science and technology
   
6. Logo type jokers, Geometric Designs 162
7. Ads   63      Text based jokers 150
8. Jokers promoting playing cards
10. Topsy Turvy - Two headed jokers take precedence over other criteria for organi
    zing so this section is large and has subsections that mirror the overall organization:
1. Animals - 40
2. Card Themed - 52
3. Music - 35
4. Ladies & Masks - 28
5. Jesters and clowns 65
6. People -61
7. Things - 32
11. Large, small, and weird-shaped jokers

Thoughts? Comments?

 

Rules: Let me clarify my rules for organizing:

1. Two headed is a dominant rule. If it's an animal or a travel or cartoon but it's two headed, it goes in the two headed or topsy section.  This means the topsy section is huge and has subsections that start to reflect the overall collection. That's fine.
   
2. Cartoon animals whose name we know go in the cartoon section. This is to make sure that Mickey Mouse, Snoopy, and Garfield are not thought of not as rodents, dogs, and cats but as the characters that they are.
3. Americana and real known people are dominant categories So the Statue of Liberty goes to Americana, not to statues.  A picture of George Washington from the waist up goes in Americans, not in busts and heads.  A picture of an actor's head goes in people / actors, not heads.
   
4. Having just the head or just from the waist up is another dominant characteristic. So clown heads goes in heads, not in clowns.
5. Clowns is dominant over heads and busts but not dominant over unicycling. 
   
6. Jesters are first characterized but what they are doing, then by what they have. This means that the first distinction is between standing, dancing, performing, or sitting. Then, whether or not they have jester wands or are performing with cards. 
   

Strengths and Weaknesses of my system.

It basically works for me despite my weak memory. My goal is to know at a glance where to look for a joker. And at the start of that section, to have a simple guide to the subsections within that section. So for instance, I can remember that "sitting" is a category but when I get to the sitting section (both online and in the albums), there's info there to guide me thru the subsections (which I tend to forget). For example, take a look at sitting:

1. Sideways: Crescent moons, Bird/Owl Man, Sideways
2. Forward: Sitting Facing Forward or Cross Legged

 But, while others have found my system interesting, I have yet to hear of another collector who has adopted my system so maybe it's too arbitrary, confusing, or personal to be useful to others.

 There are problems in the system so I keep making refinements. Current issues include:

 

- Christmas jokers as a top level category:  It's just too small even when split into Santa Claus, Winter, and Cherubs/Angels. Maybe it should become a cartoon subsection?

- The art category is stretched a little too much. It includes masks, deathly spirits, and mermaids. That is definitely my quirkiness since it makes perfect sense to me but is maybe not "industry standard".

- The distinctions can be a little confusing between jesters standing, walking, dancing, performing, or juggling. 
- Clowns as a subset of jesters, this bothers me.
- All my rules of dominance were unrecorded, until I started writing them tonight 4-27-2021. It will take awhile to make explicit all my rules. And some are probably conflicting or contradictory and will need clarification.

- Performers with cards versus jokers about cards. I have one category of jokers about cards which I really love. But I can't really explain the rule about when a joker goes into jokers about cards versus when it goes into the performers with cards section.

- My cartoon section is now enormous and has categories not yet mentioned on the website. Plus, I'm not that familiar with many modern cartoons so I could use help getting them sorted.
- The logic of the categories and subcategories are still a little unrelated to the physical albums. I could color code my albums by section but right now, the categories sometimes stretch across many albums, sometimes fit into one. If you are curious about what my collection physically looks like, the most recent pictures are here where I discuss the joker hobby.

- New Subsections are always trying to emerge from jokers grouped together on a page or across several pages. For instance, inside the cat jokers section, there's a Big Cat section beginning to appear and which soon could get its own proper subsection.

- Duplicates. I'm not set up for trading. I'm trying to fix this. Right now, my extras or dupes just go into the same sleeve in the album. When there are too many, I start a box of duplicates. Here's my current effort to get organized for trading.

- Keeping information on this website current with the albums is a problem. I’ve no real system for recording info about my jokers despite several efforts. Someday graphic search databases will get so good that computers and AI can be applied. I just learned that my iPhone images, I can now type in “car” and get my car pictures...

Laherte Guerra just proposed a different organizing concept with Ethnic/folklore, cartoon characters, and mythology.  It’s a solid concept that I’ll think about.

Here’s an article from March 2017 which is when I first articulated an overall system for categorizing joker cards.

Enjoy

an extras for trading

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

Feb 2021: The section grew so large that it's been broken into two sub-sections and five sub-sub-sections:

1. Sideways: Crescent moons, Bird/Owl Man, Sideways
2. Forward: Sitting Facing Forward or Cross Legged

Below is the original sitting article from 2019.  

Some jokers are sitting, not standing or dancing. I  just split the sitting jokers section into two: front facing and side facing. Here's a simple visual showing 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.