Joker and Card Sites & Resources

Here is a directory of some resources for joker and card collecting. Clubs, books, stores, collectors, designers, publishers, and other resources for joker collectors. It's an ambitious idea which tilts towards those that I find useful or interesting. For suggestions, just put it in a comment.  

A Joker Collection, organized by themes. Amused by Jokers Am I dot com. This is my site and l list it in case someone takes this list and puts it somewhere else. www.AmusedByJokersAmI.com

Facebook Groups
Facebook Closed Group on Joker Collecting. Run by Joop and Gejus.  Very active. Approaching 500 members in late 2020. Really really fun.

Playing Card Collectors Group. 10K members, very active.  

Pre 1950s Cards - Facebook Card Collectors 

 Joker Hunters - Alan Brunt's Facebook Group.  Trading oriented

Fake counterfeit cards, Facebook Group recognizing and trying to define and fight the illegal sale of copyrighted materials.

Card Groups & Major Directories

52 Cards Plus Jokers - Lee Asher, President - annual conference in Oct.  $25 / year!!!

International Playing Card Society - I-P-C-S.org  £49.00 GBP
Plainbacks - A major source of info by Paul Bostock & Ken Lodge

DXPO - Joop's site with a joker of the month for 20 years! More about this later, it's fantastic!

The English Playing Card Society 

The World of Playing Cards is an amazing resource!!!

Congress Cards by the Congress Guy

 World Web Playing Card Museum Another hard to believe it exists site. Created and maintained by Alexander Sukhorukov of Russia, he tries to inventory the world's playing cards. 

Forgotten People in Playing Card History, ie The Longley Brothers (very early US card makers) by Dave Seaney
Rory Rennick - an important researcher, historian, and performer who has pioneered the study of the portrayal of the African Diaspora through playing cards. 
The Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards. This is an early Trade Guild in the City of London, founded by Charter granted by King Charles I in 1628. The City of London granted its Livery in 1792. It is a craft, not a trade company.  Confused? Me too, I'm hoping to go visit one of their ceremonial meetings and see if someone actually wears a robe and carries a mace and orb.
Max Gutman's Spreadsheet of jokers from WWPCM

Books and Catalogs - Key Resources

#1. Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards by Tom & Judy Dawson, published by American Game Systems. c2000 If you don’t have a copy, get one.  I am very grateful that it exists. There's also a price guide and anl updated digital versions from both Conjuring Arts and four part version for Kindle.  

Hochmans is the BEST!

Paper Empires Vol I by Jason McKinstry. C 2019. It looks broadly at the early card makers detailing an extraordinary amount about them.

I've heard talk of A Fournier and Segeth catalogue and book. I'm looking for them

Forgotten People of Playing Cards  by David Seaney

An inventory of Bicycle Decks - Bicycle Cards.org by Joseph Pierson about the history of Bicycle Playing Cards produced by the Russell and Morgan and the United States Playing Card Company. Here's Mrs Robinson's Bicycle Cards pamphlet reproduced in full.

Museum Level Playing Card Collections 
The Cary Playing Card Collection at Beineke Library, Yale University. (I own a copy of the catalog and was an undergraduate there when the collection was put on public display in 1979) but there is no public display. The Cary collection grew by buying the Tom and Judy Dawson's collection in (year?).

Beineke Library of Old Books...And Playing Cards!

My Copy of the Cary Collection of Playing Cards

le Musée Français de la Carte à Jouer - French playing card museum in the SW Paris suburb Issy-les-Moulineaux. Here's my visit in July 2023!

John at the Paris Museum of Playing Cards

Fournier Playing Card Museum in Victoria-Gasteiz  - Northern Spain, SE of Bilbao. Here's a write-up of my visit to the Fournier Museum.

Museum of the Playing Card of Turnhout in Turnhout Belgium (not far from Antwerp or Brussels) 
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (the Grimaud family collections) but it is not on display 

Deutsches Spielkartenmuseum of Leinfelden (extraordinary collections but no place to show them).

IPCS maintains a much more comprehensive list of playing card museums

 

Where to shop: Market Places

Ebay ! Look for jokers, playing card jokers, joker collections etc etc

RubyLane

Etsy

Potter & Potter - Here's a catalog from a Gambling with Cards auction, May 2017.

http://playingcards.wikidot.com/other-uspcc:arrco

Cartorama (German)

Where I shop:  Card Publishers and Distributors

Midnight Cards - My favorite! Randy Butterfield did me a big joker favor years ago for which I am grateful! Thanks.

PlayingCardDecks.com - I might have spent more here than any other new card site. It has some useful info. Example: How cards are made and Intro to Cards

Bicycle Backs Directory.

Theory11 - https://www.theory11.com/- Active creator of magic and elegant decks.

Ellusionist.com- great decks

ElephantPlayingCards.com  EPC    Ben Jones

Peter Woods - published by NewtsGames.com - UK 

Prospero Art

Seasons Playing Cards

UUSI Fine Art

Art of Play

Empire of Kings and Queens  

Kardify - card and magic vendor
Collectable Playing Cards Vendor
Games et al - English Gallery of old playing cards and board games.
Gamblers General Store - 
Penguin Magic and Cards: I noticed my receipt from Penguin had this nice touch  

Conjuring Arts 

Games et al - English

Denexa Games with their plastic cards, great card and game info, and their dyptik dragon jokers.  

Joker Collections - I would like to have the time to describe each of the joker collection sites highlighting what's interesting, strong, or unique about each one. Of course, I will one day but it's a question of time....I'm also interested in profiling the joker collectors. What sorts of people collect jokers?

jokeroftheday.com 
AmusedByJokersAmI.com

Congress Playing Cards by The Congress Guy
Bicycle Playing Cards 
DXPO - more about this later, it's fantastic and in many ways, a model of excellence!

Emile's Collection of Spanish, Italian, and German Jokers

Jelle's Collection - Dutch, Coca Cola. He has tons of jokers to sell too

A Polish Collection by Alexander

Emile Kiderlen from Holland's Joker website -
Johnny Jolly Jokers
Pascual Francisco Antolí - Pascual's Facebook page has a great display of  black and white jokers. There are 28 rows, 9 per row, plus a few on the bottom. I figure ~255. FUN!

Well-known playing card collectors,  historians, and articles
Paul Bostock's website:  Plainbacks
Quoting from the Congress Guy's June 2022 article in “Clear The Decks”, 52 Plus Joker’s quarterly publication 

Some of these well-known collectors and historians are Judy Dawson (who should need no introduction. She and her husband Tom created the modern version of the Hochman Encyclopedia which is more than I deserve), Jason McKinstry (Paper Empires, ie early manufacturers), Joseph Pierson and Scott Kruse (Bicycle), DaveSeaney (National Card Company and Forgotten people in playing card history),  Matt Schacht, Glenn Currie, Colin Brady (Congress, Souvenir, others), Lee Asher (Patents and other areas), and Gejus van Diggele, Paul Bostock, Joop Mueller (European), Jelle Sietsma. 

 

 History of the Joker - Phil Neille - (Scroll down to "The Blank Card Comes of Age in Euchre" and I'll quote some here:

 

"It appears that Samuel Hart was aware of the “blank card” being used as a third and best bower at least by 1857. Catherine Perry Hargrave noted in her book A History of Playing Cards, that a joker by Samuel Hart in his brand called Club House Cards, dated 1857,⁽¹³⁾ appears to be one of the first jokers. Another Joker card by the American Playing Card Company made their famous patriotic Union Cards, dated 1862, and is in the collection of the National Museum, Smithsonian Institution.⁽¹⁴⁾ What is also of interest is that another joker card of 1863, by Samuel Hart, was labeled as an “Imperial Bower” – “This Card takes either Bower.”⁽¹⁵⁾ Hart’s joker of 1863 was not the first joker as some card historians have claimed. At least two jokers were made before 1863 and possibly more but were lost to history."

 

 The Major Card Companies 

USPCC

Fournier

Cartamundi

Piatnik

Nintendo

 

Smaller card companies

Expert Playing Cards Company. 

Legend
Denexa Games 

 

other stuff to be sorted...

https://www.collectorplayingcards.com/

https://cartorama.de

http://www.epcs.org

http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/dbs/goslingcards.shtml

52plusjoker.org%20club

http://a_pollett.tripod.com/

https://www.altacarta.com/english/index.html  info@altacart.com 
Dot Pattern  

Instagram & Pinterest accounts -list?

Ie

instagram.com/collectorplayingcards

Online Resources on Cards...

 International Playing Card Society - I-P-C-S.org  £49.00 GBP

Final Answers by Gerard P Michon. It has a lot of card history. 

Playing Card Decks - Amazing collection of articles on cards. History, manufacturing, finishes etc.

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General Collector Sites:

https://www.collectorsweekly.com/user/jokercollector/posts

Collectors.com

 

(SAVE ALL THIS from Final answers FOR AN ARTICLE ABOUT CARD HISTORY - I can quote him there) 

 Also, Gerard explains the emergence of the modern joker this way: "In the old game of  Jucker  from  Alsace,  the two most powerful cards are two jacks of the same color  (called  Juker,  regionally, or  Bauer  in German).  When that game was exported to the United States, its name was distorted to  Euchre  and  Bauer  became  Bower  (both spellings approximate the German pronunciations).  The game was originally played with a  deck of 24 cards  (it still is).  An American innovation was to introduce one extra card, called  best bower  that would take either bower...  This became known as  the Jucker card.  The  joker  was born."