These jokers feature real people who as far as I know, are just people. Plain people. Interesting people surely. But not celebrities or famous. Just people, who for one reason or another, had their photograph put onto a playing card joker.
These first two were cited on Joop's July 2005 Jokers of the Month discussion. He says that these are from the Brown and Bigelow deck in the 1950s.
What to see next? I'd suggest other people jokers. Here's the categories...
Here are some jokers that I call, topsy turvy jokers. What I mean by topsy turvy jokers is that they are symmetrical with no up or down. I'm not totally strict about this since, for example, the first two pictured, are not totally symmetrical yet there is no way from the joker side to decide which side is up.
I'd be very interested in knowing if anyone has a better term for this style of jokers than topsy turvy. Comments please? UPDATE: I've been told common terms are mirrored or duplex jokers.
------- NOTE - June, 2023: This article is obsolete. To see the updated articles on full duplex or symmetrical jokers:
These first two are original jokers designed by me as part of promotional decks for my day job. Click to read the description of the process of designing the jokers.
Ed Mouse & Penguin Jokers
Back of the Cards
HangMouse Cat & Mouse Joker
The next two are from the GoNoodle deck. GoNoodle also is a SAS provider of educational materials primarily to elementary schools. We also both make really well designed jokers!
I like jokers, topsy turveys, and monkeys. Imagine my joy at finding all these design elements together!
I really liked Toy Story by Pixar and I particularly liked some of the characters. Wonder wonder of joys, here are some of my favorite characters on topsy turvy jokers.
Another favorite of mine: a classical but original jester with his jester wand.
This next joker is known (Per Dan Nordquist and I quote him...) as SlapStick. The term "slap stick" actually comes from the Commedie del Arte, which also produced Punch and Judy and the word 'zany". This originated in Italy, many hundreds of years ago and changed the world of comedy dramatically. It was the continuation of trends begun in Greek theater and originated the idea of characters ( such as the Marx Brothers of modern times ) who always behaved in a similar way. Harlequin was another person from the Commedie. Many jokers have such characters on them.
SlapStick Joker
Polo players on a joker, symmetrically!
Another well rendered classical topsy turvy jester joker.
Another horsey themed topsy turvy joker but this time with a clown. As you may know, I don't like clowns on jokers.
The next two are long standing favorites of mine in that I remember collecting them in 1979. I was 21. I took a trip with my parents (technical exchange, my Dad was a big time space engineering technical type) to the Soviet Union. The next joker is from Russia, the one below from Finnish Air.
The jokers are pictured inside the plastic holders that I keep them in. These pages are sold primarily to collectors of baseball playing card.
I think I have 84 jokers that I count in the topsy turvy section of the joker collection.
The ones in the top photo in the top left and top right spots are original jokers designed by Time4Learning and VocabularySpellingCity.
I'm particularly fond of the middle joker in this next set and the one on the middle row on the far right. The reason is that I collected both of them on the same trip, a trip to Leningrad and Moscow form the US. It was 1979, I was about 21 years old. Leningrad of course is no more, now it's back to St Petersburg.
On another note, in the top left and right corners of the nine above, there is a joker known (Per Dan Nordquist and I quote him...) as SlapStick. The term "slap stick" actually comes from the Commedie del Arte, which also produced Punch and Judy and the word 'zany". This originated in Italy, manjy hundreds of years ago and changed the world of comedy dramatically. It was the continuation of trends begun in Greek theater and originated the idea of characters ( such as the Marx Brothers of modern times ) who always behaved in a similar way. Harlequin was another person from the Commedie. Many jokers have such characters on them.
Sept 22, 2017 - Updated with the most recent set of topsy turvy jokers. My photography is better than it was but still not good enough.
September 2018 update. I now have about 175 topsy turvy jokers. Here's a quick video of them, please excuse my production values. And another update, late March 2019. I'm at 221.
And I'll mention one of my favorite pages, the topsy turvy ladies!
As I understand it, a transformation deck of playing cards designs the pips into the image of each card. Below for instance is a nine of hearts from a Peter Wood transformation deck: Notice that the there are nine hearts in the image placed in the exact spots where they would be placed in a standard deck but they are integrated into the overall image. It's a very very special art form.
Can you see the nine hearts in this image? Transformation Playing Cards
I have two transformation decks that I bought from Peter Wood from the UK. I have a 2000PIPs and Wild! The box of each deck is signed by Peter Wood himself.
2000PIPS by Peter Wood Joker 1 Transformation Deck
2000PIPS by Peter Wood Joker 2 Transformation Deck
Take a look at how beautifully Peter Wood has worked the pips into the design for each of these cards in the 2000PIPS deck.
2000PIPS by Peter Wood Transformation Deck
Can you see the nine hearts in this image?
Transformation Playing Cards
The 2000PIPS Deck
Box and Back
Printed by the Design & Print Partnership
The Wild! Deck was designed by Peter Wood
Copyright Newt's Playing Cards
In the Wild! cards, the pips are again woven into the card designs. But the designs are a little simpler and are themed to cover the animals. They are copyrighted by Newts Playing Cards at NewtsCards.com, a Playing Card Superstore (sic).
Wild! Animal Cards
Here's a transformation deck that I added to my collection in late 2019. It was purchased from the Gamblers Warehouse. It was published by Sunnish Chabba and Ishan Trevida of the Guru Playing Card company, Melbourne Australia. It's a tribute (does this mean reprint?) of "the beautiful work of Garnet Walch & George Gordan McRae titled "On the Cards. Or, A Motley Pack. A Christmas Annual published in Melbourne in the year 1875..."
There are degrees of transformation decks.... true versus so-called transformation decks!
I have several more transformation decks but Peter Wood's were the first I bought and the 2000PIPS deck is my favorite. It turns out in the esoteric world of the challenge of design transformation decks, there is room for fine distinctions and for people to declare the concept of "so called" and "true" transformation decks.
For instance, the description of my Circus Transformation Playing Card Deck by F Robert Schick (1924-1988) says: "..in designing this true Transformation Deck (emphasis added), the artist has exercised no poetic license whatsoever with manipulating the sizes, placement or shapes of the 'pip's unlike some of the few "so-called" Transformation Decks which have been designed in recent years.'
Stay tuned for my article about my Circus Transformation Playing Card Deck by F Robert Schick. (It's been nine years and we are still waiting on that article...)
I was feeling like spending a little money on myself and so, I clicked over to Ebay to look at joker playing cards and spent I think around $50- $100. I actually bid on about 20 items but 4 of them seem to have been immediately buys or already closed. Here's the playing cards that are headed my way.
BTW, in the lots of cards, there were at least three jokers that I thought were interesting. One of the fun things about buying jokers online is the photography of them is already done so I have more visual fodder for my collection.
Here's the jokers that I purchased today so far....
The new jokers for me are (counting L to R, Row 1, then 2): Numbers 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9
I have most, maybe all, of these jokers already but they seemed good buy anyway
Three liquor playing card jokers They're all new to me!
Ugly jokers, aren't they?
This time on Ebay looking at jokers made me wonder about the other modern media. So I poked around on Twitter and found: @PlayingCardBlog @PlayingCards @CardsCollector . There's probably a whole community of joker and playing card aficionados there and maybe a hashtag or two that I should figure out. I did start to look at their followers and there's one company that seems worth calling out, the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards.
I don't have a Twitter handle dedicated to this topic so you can reach me as @VSpellCityMayor which is my day job (it greatly interferes with my passion for collecting). Actually, that's not altogether true in that I also collect vintage educational technology tools which has turned out to be perfect decorating theme for my high tech edtech company. And I do have some jokers on the wall in my office and we did do a corporate deck of cards with our own characters as jokers.
For those who are wondering, my Ebay name is johnegood. The fun in joker collecting for me is to do it without spending money. What this means is that I tend to spend about a $1 per new joker. I do often spend more. I have a hard upper limit of spending no more than $5 per new joker. Unless of course I've been drinking in which case I might go wild and spend $10 for a particularly beautiful joker. For me, the most beautiful jokers are the ones that do a clever variation on a theme. Favorites might be:
Actually, I'm going to have to think hard about my favorites. Some of my favorite pages from the albums don't seem to show up on the website except in the joker card video...
