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The Alternative for the Playing Card Collector

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There are several ways to bring a commercial on a playing card. The most common form is to reproduce to company logo on the back side of the card or in other ways advertise for a product. This kind of advertising is the cheapest because the card pattern can be used without any modification. Another way is in slightly changing the original pictures that they include a message. For example the sword or other objects can be replaced by something the court cards advertise for. A step further is when a company completely redesigns the pattern. Here there a two groups. First the card pattern still resembles an original and second it was entirely designed from scratch. Especially these types of games can be most interesting for collectors. They are quite unusual and have a limited edition. Often they are quite artistic and appealing. Rather rare are commercial messages directly on the card pattern but without changing it. White spaces on the from side are used to add a text. Two examples for advertising in free spaces on the card picture Left: Tobacco ad from the 1930s Right: Ad for the newspaper "Der neue Landfreund" ca. 1980 Left: Original Pattern slightly modified, king holds beer glass in hand; Right: Pattern newly designed, but nevertheless you can see the Bavarian Pattern shimmering through. US-Elections 1963. John F. Kennedy and other persons of the Kennedy-Clan, also politicians from the democratic party. Based on the Anglo-American Pattern. Advertise for the "Südtiroler Illustrierte" with cartoons of famous personalities from this region; Left: Lilly Gruber (news speaker for the Italian television RAI); Middle: Reinhold Messner (mountaineer). This card game has the Salzburg Pattern as model. These cards are no derivative of any standard pattern. Even though in the last shown examples (Kennedy, the two breweries, the magazine and recycling) are clearly advertisements, these cards are also so called "non standard cards". They belong to both categories. The most common form of ads is found on the back side of the cards and that without changing the picture on the front. It not necessarily have to be from a company or corporation, as in the example on the left hand side. It can also be a city, a region, distinctive sign or a cultural place - theatre, concert hall, museum (as in the example to the right). But before I continue to the next chapter I want to say something to collectors of advertisements on the back. There are collectors who specialised on certain motives like breweries, financial institutes or air lines. The last example in this chapter shows an original packed and still factory sealed bridge game from the year 1939, that was sold in auction at eBay. The tax stamp is still intact. This deck found a new owner for incredible US$ 1,225.oo. With this I want to say that there are also serious collectors of advertising cards. Games with the Coca-Cola logo belong to the most wanted ones. eBay No 7117541380, auction end am December 06, 2004 03:00:00 GMT Coca-Cola ad of Hund & Eger Bottling Co. Price US$ 1,225.00 Second highest bid US$ 1,200.00 Third highest bid US$ 701.00 These were 3 different bidders.

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Non Standard Cards

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