Philibert Pin-up decks

[RSLancastr]

I have long been a fan of the non-standard courts in the decks published by French publisher Philibert in the 1950s & 1960s.

Some examples:

==========[ Can-Can ]==========


==========[ Le Florentin ]==========


==========[ Corsaires & Flibustiers ]==========


Wile most of their decks include erotic images, they also published a line of
"pin-up" decks which more directly appealed to "prurient interests", consisting of color photographs of nude (or nearly-nude) women.

Although I enjoy looking at the female form as much as most (hetero) guys, pin-up decks such as these fail to excite the card-collector in me, as they fall into the category I call "52 pictures of (whatever)" - decks with an image of a different cat/dog/horse/woman/whatever on each card, with little (if any) thought given to which image went on which card. Meh.

But, since I was trying to collect all of Philibert's decks, I picked up three or four of Philibert's pin-up decks in the 1990s for - IIRC - around $10 each.

Aside from their obvious...charms, these decks, like most pin-up decks, give us some insight as to what was considered sexy (in terms of the female form) at the time. (The women in these decks are generally a bit more..."full-figured" than women in such decks printed noiwadays, I think).

I occasionally search eBay for Philibert decks, and was surprised to find some of their pin-up decks listed with minimum bids far above what I would have expected:

CLICK TO VIEW LISTING

CLICK TO VIEW LISTING

[RSLancastr]

The phrase "I take umbrage at your previous assertion but cannot be arsed to respond appropriately.." in the previous post is evidently inserted automatically by the forum software to replace the word spelled m-e-h.

Odd.

[max]

In fact, original pin-up decks are insanely expensive on ebay!!!

[RSLancastr]

Sure, I have seen Elvgren and Vargas pin-up decks go for a pretty penny - they always have.

But the Philibert pin-ups used to be priced surprisingly low.

Not any more, apparently!

[dazzleguts]

So, since the pin ups don't really suit your collection, you must be thinking of selling them. I would in your shoes.

I have only kept 2 pin up decks of women. The Honey Brand deck with it's beautiful box and it's oddly lit multi-colour joker pin up. The Esquire deck where Iain Crawford photographed models in a card shaped rectangular light box producing rather abstract positive and negative forms. The corners of the light box are even rounded.

I recommend the Esquire deck which looks especially good spread out so all the figures are played off each other in a grid. There are 24 images in my deck, which seem to repeat somewhat randomly, so there is no distinction between courts and pip cards. The aces are all the same, and the joker is double ended. No hits on ebay at this time but that is where I found mine.

[RSLancastr]

Selling them is kinda tempting, and will be something I will consider once I have access to my collection (currently in boxes I cannot reach from my wheelchair).

I probably have fifteen or twenty pin-up decks. Let's see:

1. Two decks of Vargas illustrations.

2. I have at least one or two Honey decks, but don't recall anything about them.

3. three or four of the Philibert pin-up decks (Proverbs, Deeses and ?)

4. A fashion photographer deck with some cool double-ended courts.

5. A Black&White photo pinup deck of male models (a gift from my sister).

6. "Risque Beauties" (and some of the cards on which it is based).

7. "Art Study" decks from the 1950s.

and probably more.

One of those "Art Study" decks has nude photos of women from (supposedly) "Around the World" - each model posing with some prop (the "Italian" model had a bowl of spaghetti, for example).

It is very campy, and one of the models (I forget for which "country") looks very much like a young Betty White. Curious as to whether or not it was her, I contacted a woman who was working on White's biography. I sent her a scan of the card and asked if it was White. She said it sure looked like White, but she did not know for certain.

Months later I saw White appear on the David Letterman Show and he brought out a copy of the card and showed it to her. Asked if it was her, she said something like "Wouldn't that be nice?"

Hmm.

[RSLancastr]

Back when I was looking into the Betty White card, there was nothing about it on the web.

Now there is, probably because of White's recewnt resugence in popularity.

Here's one page about it:

http://www.kdge.com/pages/vydra.html?article=7252740

[RSLancastr]

By the way, here is an excellent book on the subject of pin-up playing cards:

http://www.amazon.com/Stacked-Decks-His ... +Rotenberg

[dazzleguts]

Does that book include male pin-up decks too?

[RSLancastr]

Not sure, DG - it has been years since I looked at it - but I do not think so, sorry!

[dazzleguts]

Thanks RS. Stacked was tentatively on my list for reference books, but since it's coverage is incomplete I will drop it.

[RSLancastr]

DG, I think that the VAST majority of pin-up decks are of women, and so "Stacked Decks" covers the genre fairly well.

As I may have said earlier in this topic, there is a book/catalog published by a Spanish-language card-collector society (the name ASACOIN rings a bell) which focuses on "erotic playing cards", period. I believe it covered the male pin-up side, such as it is.

For whatever reason, Men are more visually stimulated (sexually) than are women, so I think that most male "pin-up" decks are marketed to homosexual men than to straight women (and a fair number of the latter are meant to be humorous "gag gifts", given at bachelorette parties and such.

So I would imagine that the "pin-up" genre is MORE than 95% covered by the "Stacked Decks" book.

I will pick it up some day.

For the articles, of course.

[dazzleguts]

Then you have never seen a crowd of women viewing a male stripper.

Women do enjoy erotic imagery, the image just has to be more subtle, and psychological or playful. More involving than a straight pin up. As an artist I have made a few erotic art pieces featuring men and they have been very popular with women.

But you are right, straight ahead photo pin ups are almost entirely male oriented. I was disappointed that a large and varied collection like the Rotenberg would result in such a narrow focus book, but after looking into it more I see there are other books based on the same collection.

Enjoy those articles.

[neongrey]

I think it's a bit less that women don't like hardcore stuff so much-- it's more true than not but there's a pretty significant proportion of women who thoroughly enjoy seeing sweaty naughty bits pounding each other, so to speak.

Yeah, I think it's a lot more that there are more pinup decks geared toward men than to women for the same reason as most explicitly erotic work is geared towards men-- western culture has spent quite a long time making it 'okay' for men to like the stuff and 'not okay' for women to. I don't want to open a can of worms here or anything, so I'll leave off the more modern era, but if you look at more vintage decks like these it's fairly safe to say that -- on average-- it would be considered pretty inappropriate for a woman to be enjoying a similarly erotic deck of male art, but at the same time you'd get a lot more 'boys will be boys' school of thought as to men with such an item.

Sorry, I do a lot of work in a related industry and I find the history of erotic materials pretty interesting.

[dazzleguts]

No need to apologize, that is an interesting point.
The permission society grants to men is entirely different from what it grants to women, leading to men also being the ones who made most of the images. I think that's why you see so many clothed male figures portrayed with naked female figures in erotic decks, like in the Philibert. The women are vulnerable and idealized while the men retain their dignity, individuality, and power as the artist identifies with the male in the image.

[RSLancastr]

Then you have never seen a crowd of women viewing a male stripper.

Sure I have (though not in person).

I did not say that women are NOT visually stimulated (sexually), just that men are MORE so.

As a man who - much to his surprise - once posed, sem-nude, for a "pin-up" calendar (long story), and subsequently autographed said calendar for women who lined up for it (okay, not a LOT of women), I know that there is at least SOME market for such things.

But it is DWARFED by the market for "pin-up" images of women.

I recall when Playgirl Magazine first came out in - what, the mid-to-late 1970s. I thought (as evidently did the publisher) that between "women's lib" and the more relaxed sexual attitudes of the times, that it would sell just as well as did Playboy Magazine, but that was not the case - though whether that was due to poor marketing or to what we are discussing here is a matter of debate I suppose.

Women do enjoy erotic imagery, the image just has to be more subtle, and psychological or playful. More involving than a straight pin up. As an artist I have made a few erotic art pieces featuring men and they have been very popular with women.

Yes, my "pin-up" calendar photo was definitely more playful than erotic (sad to say).

But you are right, straight ahead photo pin ups are almost entirely male oriented. I was disappointed that a large and varied collection like the Rotenberg would result in such a narrow focus book, but after looking into it more I see there are other books based on the same collection.

Enjoy those articles.

Will do, thanks!

I think it's a bit less that women don't like hardcore stuff so much-- it's more true than not but there's a pretty significant proportion of women who thoroughly enjoy seeing sweaty naughty bits pounding each other, so to speak.

Yeah, I think it's a lot more that there are more pinup decks geared toward men than to women for the same reason as most explicitly erotic work is geared towards men-- western culture has spent quite a long time making it 'okay' for men to like the stuff and 'not okay' for women to. I don't want to open a can of worms here or anything, so I'll leave off the more modern era, but if you look at more vintage decks like these it's fairly safe to say that -- on average-- it would be considered pretty inappropriate for a woman to be enjoying a similarly erotic deck of male art, but at the same time you'd get a lot more 'boys will be boys' school of thought as to men with such an item.

Sorry, I do a lot of work in a related industry and I find the history of erotic materials pretty interesting.