Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Real People: Politicians

This post is obsolete. Here's the updated page on American Political Jokers.  here's the one on Non-US Political Figures and Political Commentators.

 **        **        **        ***            ***
Jokers with political figures on them is a section inside the Real People part of the joker collection.  It starts with a George Bush Jr as the joker.


George Bush Junior Joker
George Bush Junior Joker

Here's a page with eight different George Bush Juniors on it plus one Bill Clinton because they are from the same deck and belong together.


Here's Al Franken and then Ted Kennedy.




Here's a mix of US and foreign politicians as jokers. It's Al Gore in the top row, George McGovern in the middle of hte middle row, and UK"s Margaret Thatcher in the middle of the bottom row.
Before we leave US presidents, here's the joker from a deck published by Alfabet, Inc. and made by United States Playing Card Co. c.1972, called “The President’s Deck,” featuring   Richard Nixon (Kings), Pat Nixon (Queens), Spiro Agnew (Jacks), and Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace (Jokers). The Joker Poster from the US Museum of Playing Cards has one of the jokers on it. Dawson, The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards, p.229, P13; Fournier, Playing Cards, North America 232.  This joker is George Wallace.

The other joker from this deck has Hubert Humphrey on a hobby horse. Here's a picture of it (with three others) when I had him in the horse section of the collection.


This is a page of the bad boys of history. I don't like them.

 And some more political jokers.



I'm still having trouble identifying some fo these people, Take a look at this page with all its questions:  Questions about some real people jokers.

There are other related sections to come such as real people entertainers (like Elvis Jokers), sports, and other Real People.  Sign up for email updates

Monday, July 22, 2019

Statues on Jokers

This article has been obsoleted and replaced by this updated article on jokers with statues, sculptures, and artifacts.

 -----------------

These jokers are pictures of statues, they are part of the artsy section.  The related sections: 

  1. Beautiful art jokers, classic, digital, and  flowers, fruit, mermaids
  2. Card-themed Jokers (YES, this is intentional) 
  3. Mystical, deathly, and devils. Pirates too.
  4. Masks
  5. Statues - This is the article you are reading here!








Here are the statue jokers (updated 12/2020): there are 70 today.

The first set shows classic Greek and more modern statues erected on rocks, in fountains, and well, just erected! 



The top two corners are jokers (I think) from Randy Butterfield's deck "Rome".



 If you look at the top right on this page, you'll see a statue. The two to his left are part of the same set which explains why a picture and a building are here in the architectural section.






I'm piloting a new system of updating in which I add the new ones sometimes (like this) without having to rephotograph the entire section.  

Here were about 70 statue jokers (12/2020). And below are four new statues added in January 2021.  

For you total joker collecting nerds (my peeps), this means that the pictured pages will not necessarily match the pages actually in the album since I rarely just add new jokers to the end of the section: I usually insert them on pages where I feel they most belong which produces a cascading set of reorgs through the section. (BTW: this is a new system today. How long will this transition take to ripple through the entire collection? A year? A quarter of a year?).  


Here’s more new ones May 2, 2021




My other innovation in methodology this morning relates to duplicate jokers. Until today, I have just put the duplicates in the same pockets on the pages which made collecting easy but it made trading very difficult since I could not easily produce a list of duplicates that I have. I'm now creating cuplicate ("dupes") page at the end of each section. Here's my first two.  







 
Want to see more jokers? I'd suggest these related sections: 
  1. Beautiful art jokers, classicdigital, and  flowers, fruit, mermaids
  2. Card-themed Jokers (YES, this is intentional) 
  3. Mystical, deathly, and devils. Pirates too.
  4. Masks
  5. Statues - this article with 70!
  6. Topsy Turvy - This has subsections that mirror the overall organization. They are:
    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 - this is where two headed or duplex statue jokers would go since topsy overrules statues as an organizing principle.

Thursday, July 18, 2019

Jokers with Swords

My jokers with swords section starts with  two jokers where the four suits are designed into the picture. The shield of this ferocious green fighter shows that he fights for the hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds, regardless of their color.  Note his manly mustache and yellow curls!




On this joker, the suits have been collected onto his sword.



Here's a video that I just made that walks you through my 85 jokers with swords. Oh, this group has been expanded to become jokers who fight so while many have swords, others are wrestlers, some have other medieval weapons, and some have old or modern firearms.



 

The long weapon in this Jolly Joker's hand is a medieval pole axe used to stab, slash, and pull horseman down from their horses.  Thanks to Ronald Kruijmel of the "Joker Collectors Group" on Facebook for pointing me towards the term halbards

This fighter to my eye looks to be outfitted more for a parade than battle, is holding a halbard in one hand and has a sheathed sword attached to his belt. 

Halbard-Holding Jolly Joker
Halbard-Holding Jolly Joker

A halbard is also called a halberd, halbert or Swiss voulge). It's a two-handed pole weapon popular in the 14th and 15th centuries. The halberd consists of an axe blade topped with a spike mounted on a long shaft. It always has a hook or thorn on the back side of the axe blade for grappling mounted combatants.  And here is another!


World Joker Soldier with a halbard






I recently added a Diana with a bow and arrow to the fighter section. She is from a set of Congress decks that I bought in 2023 which includes an 1899 Congress Diana deck of cards.


Now for the ensemble shots of these fighting jokers. Tough-looking, eh?



Here's a section with more modern fighters.

Bicycle Monster Playing Card Jokers
Bicycle Monster Playing Card Jokers
Bicycle Monster Playing Card Jokers

These next two jokers are in this fighter's section although they've clearly brought guns to a knife fight.   Anyone know anything about them?


Here's the back.
Now for more swordsmen...




The joker in the middle of this next page is inspired by the bronze sculpture of Arlequin (Harlequin) by Charles Rene de Saint-Marceaux (French, 1845 - 1915).  Here's the statue, thanks Jane Lane of the FB Joker Collectors Club, for this info and photo.

May be an image of sculpture and monument



This last page has 9 more variations (there's two in previous pages) of this soldier with has banner and sheathed sword.


What jokers to look at next?
Maybe jokers with swords is a type of sports joker?
Or related to standing jokers?
Or jokers of history? (OOPS, just realized that I'm years later posting about how I've split the Real People jokers inter entertainment, statues, history, and others. Stay tuned for this too!!!)