Wednesday, December 9, 2020

Topsy Jokers with Clowns or Jesters

These topsy jokers feature either clowns, jesters, or other harlequin-type characters.  These jokers are two-headed, otherwise known as mirrored, full duplex, reversible, or topsy turvies (turveys?)

This article was updated June 2023.  . The first pair of topsy jesters is are from an Oak Meadows (virtual school) promotional deck.

Oak Meadow Playing Cards Jokers
Oak Meadow Playing Cards Jokers

Here's a classical two headed harlequin. Note the bat with the dual blades which should make a nice clacking noise when he hits the other characters. Think of a Punch and Judy puppet show. 

 

Note there is now a separate section for the Western Publishing Topsy Jokers or Pinwheels since there are so many of them (around 30 at last count). Here's an example of one:


Here's the complete set of topsy turvy jester and clown jokers. 



 Here’s a close-up of the original Midlands Pinwheel joker, 1920. 

And here’s Hochman P149.

The page below features  jokers that Dan Nordquist named Pinwheel. Pinwheel first appears in Hochman on P149: MSW 131b Golf. Midland Playing Card Co, Chicago 1920. The yellow and black  was the original version. Pinwheel became the standard Western Playing Card jokers and reappears on P150 as MSW 136 Universal Playing Cards, Western Playing Cards.













You should now look at other topsy turvy or full duplex jokers. In my organization "Two headedness"  takes precedence over other criteria for organization so this two headed section is large and its subsections vaguely mirrors the entire organization.

 

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Thanks for your input and for reading and thinking about jokers.