UC Featured Collector for Mar/April 2014 - Robert Lancaster

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Sat Mar 08, 2014 1:59 am

Jock, your mentioning how card-collecting was in the days before the Internet

reminded me of another story or three (I know, what doesn't?):

After I had created my hobby-related web site back in late 1996, I asked the

officers of 52 Plus Joker if they would like for me to create a web site for the

club.

They held an officers' meeting to discuss it, and I was invited.

At the time, web sites were just starting to be mentioned in TV and print

advertisements for major companies like Coca-Cola and Ford, so many

people thought that the web was all about commercial web sites for major

companies.

It's hard to imagine now, but I was asked questions in that meeting such as

"Do you really think that this... 'Internet thing' will catch on?" and "You really

think that people will use it to get information about their hobby?"

I tried to assure them that people would indeed use it for information about

their hobby, but they didn't really believe that until the Club Secretary told

them that around 80% of the members of the club who had joined in recent

months had indicated that they had first heard about the club...on MY web

site!

That sold them on hobbyists using the web in their hobby, and they voted to

have a club web site, and to have me create it.

I created a very simple one for them, which I unveiled to the membership

during my presentation "Using the Internet in Collecting Playing Cards", which

I presented at the club's 1996 annual convention.

Here is an archive.org copy of the 52 Plus Joker web site from 1998:

https://web.archive.org/web/199812052 ... n false;

I took a desktop PC (not a laptop) and a projector, and showed them a

PowerPoint presentation which included screen captures of My site, some

eBay auctions of decks, a web site where a vendor was selling vintage

decks, and the club's new web site.

You could almost see the lightbulbs going on above the heads of the

audience, and their jaws dropping as they realized that this "Internet thing"

was something they could actually USE in their hobby/passion!

Nowadays, the web has been such an integral part of mst people's lives for

so long, it's difficult to even imagine the need for that Officers' meeting, or my

presentation at the convention, but they were exactly what was needed to get

that club - and many of its members - off the dime and onto the web!

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Sat Mar 08, 2014 10:30 pm

No reaction to my "Transformation 2000" cards? Hmmmmmmmmmm...

Two more decks "from the vault":

==========[ Doonesbury@Starbucks ]==========

Published in 1999, this deck was available for a limited time in select Starbucks stores, along with other "Doonesbury@Starbucks" merchandise (t-shurts, coffee mugs, travel mugs, comic books, etcetera).

This is a double-deck set, with two different backs.

==========[ PeterWood_HiddenMickeys_Uncolored ]==========

UK artist Peter Wood has created a dozen or more decks of playing cards, many of them featuring Goblins, Golliwogs, and his trademark, Teddy Bears.

This deck features "Hidden Mickeys" (the iconic silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head and ears). Mr. Wood produced only 75 copies of this, the Uncolored version of the deck, and even fewer of the hand-colored version.

See my collection @ Portfolio52 · Sun Mar 09, 2014 6:48 am

I admit I kind of skipped it when the formatting was still funky! Just gave it a read through though and the designs are great - have you thought about taking up the torch again?

There are plenty of people here who would help make the deck a reality if you finished all the designs

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 11:55 am

montecarlojoe wrote:I admit I kind of skipped it when the formatting was still funky! Just gave it a read through though and the designs are great - have you thought about taking up the torch again?

There are plenty of people here who would help make the deck a reality if you finished all the designs

Thanks for giving it a second chance, Joe!

And yes, I've often thought of "taking up the torch" again, although I would have to start over from scratch, unless I happen to stumble upon a backup copy of the POV-Ray source to the project somewhere (not bloody likely). I had written in another thread/topic on UC in 2012 of my plan to create an entirely different, POV-Ray-based transformation deck called "Celebrate!", wherein each card would depict a scene from a different holiday/celebration. I had intended on displaying each card from that deck here on UC as they were completed, with one card completed each week of the year, depicting a scene from a holiday in or near that week.

That grandiose plan was described in this thread/topic:

http://unitedcardists.com/viewtopic.php ... =celebrate, optimistically titled "Celebrate! A new deck coming in 2013". (sigh).

Failing to even start it in 2013, and having already missed doing it in 2014, I should start right now reacquainting myself with POV-Ray, and just begin the project whenever I feel ready.

I had also hoped to make it a Bike-branded deck, which would almost DEFINITELY require it being a KS-backed project. You really think that would work out?

See my collection @ Portfolio52 · Sun Mar 09, 2014 2:08 pm

I don't see why not - it certainly can't hurt to give it a go - and the community here certainly isn't afraid to give feedback on designs!

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 2:58 pm

Oh, I'll DEFINITELY look here for feedback ("Thinner borders!!")

Jock1971 · Unread post by **Jock1971** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 4:21 pm

The designs for your Transformation 2000 decks are excellent especially for that time. And i`m very glad to hear you`re giving your Celebration deck another go.

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Sun Mar 09, 2014 4:37 pm

Jock1971 wrote:The designs for your Transformation 2000 decks are excellent especially for that time.

Thanks, you young whipper-snapper!

Reminds me of the time when someone found me in an online forum and asked if I was the same Bob Lancaster who had written the DOS Shareware game MLYAHT back in the 1980s. When I said that I was, he (or she, I don't recall which) said "That was a great game - for its time!"

And i`m very glad to hear you`re giving your Celebration deck another go.

Thanks, and that's "Celebrate!"

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 1:18 am

Okay, I just wanted to try this:

♥♣♦♠
♥♣♦♠
♥♣♦♠
♥♣♦♠

See my collection @ Portfolio52 · Mon Mar 10, 2014 7:51 am

I may well steal these as the symbols in the Kickstarter index

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 9:31 am

montecarlojoe wrote:I may well steal these as the symbols in the Kickstarter index

Feel free to do so!

Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:38 am

RSLancastr wrote:Okay, I just wanted to try this:

♥♣♦♠
♥♣♦♠
♥♣♦♠
♥♣♦♠

Stolen! Good one, Robert: I'm going to use it in my signature and elsewhere as well. It's amazing what you can do with just a little thinking outside the box.

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:44 am

Mike Ratledge wrote:Stolen! Good one, Robert: I'm going to use it in my signature and elsewhere as well. It's amazing what you can do with just a little thinking outside the box.

You're more than welcome to it Mike, but it looks like you may have the SIZE="xxx" wrong in your sig line. I set it at SIZE="500" in my post because when I tried it much bigger than that, funky things started happening.

Here's another "from the vault":

==========[ Polit-PokerInternational_1990 ]==========

Produced by German publisher Altenburg-Stralsunder in 1990, this deck is one of a series of decks they published over the years, with cartoon drawings of various prominent political world leaders on the courts, aces and jokers.

=====[ The Cards ]=====

Heart - Queen Elizabeth II, the constitutional monarch (queen) of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_II

Club - Carlos Saúl Menem, President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Sa%C3%BAl_Menem

Diamond - Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany 1982–90 and of the reunited Germany 1990–98)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Kohl

Spade - George Bush, Sr. (from the days when few people even knew there was a Jr.), 41st President of the United States (1989–1993).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bush_Sr.

Joker - Fidel Castro, Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and President from 1976 to 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro

Back - A drawing of a dove of peace, perched atop a globe of the Earth, depicted as a bomb with its fuse lit.

Extra/Additional - the deck had no Extra/Additional cards.

Box - the front of the deck's tuck box, including the $5.00 price tag from when I purchased it at a 52 Plus Joker annual convention. (The back of the tuck depicts the deck's card back).

Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:23 am

RSLancastr wrote:
Mike Ratledge wrote:Stolen! Good one, Robert: I'm going to use it in my signature and elsewhere as well. It's amazing what you can do with just a little thinking outside the box.
You're more than welcome to it Mike, but it looks like you may have the SIZE="xxx" wrong in your sig line. I set it at SIZE="500" in my post because when I tried it much bigger than that, funky things started happening.

The thing is to keep people from doing crazy things, signature size limit is 250, but you can go much larger in the post itself. It used to be 125 in the sigs, but I let it open up a little bit as well as the total length to 750 characters vice the 500 it was before - when I went to the new hosting and got unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage.

I found a deck of those "Blacks Factor" you showed tonight, it's always fun to do a "playing card" search on ebay, go to page 50 where nobody has looked before and pick the listings where people don't have a clue what they have. I found a set of Aristocrat decks, new sealed from the late 60's/70's-ish with a leather "Book" presentation and steel clip around them that I paid $15 for. Of course, they weren't listed as Aristocrats, but obviously are: (sorry, this IS your thread, but I'll post two pix here) Clearly can't be listed as 'new', even though technically still sealed there as good as new. Also, clearly not very interesting with those backs, but none-the-less very collectible! No tax stamps so I figure about 1968-1972 judging from the way the cellophane is crimped.

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:49 am

Nice find on the "books", Mike!

When I used to comb through lots of antique stores for decks, I frequently saw decks in little "books" like that. I remember seeing many two-deck sets in little white or black "bindings" like that, usually with "OLD TESTAMENT" and "NEW TESTAMENT" printed on their "spines". (I think it was supposed to be humorous that "sinful" playing cards were being disguised as Bibles).

Nice find on the "Blacks Factor" deck as well. Does it have the same back as the one I posted? I seem to recall seeing it with a very different back a few years after I purchased mine.

Your "eBay strategy" reminds me of a couple of strategies I used there in "Ye Olde Days" to find decks which other card-collectors missed. I remember lucking into a couple of pretty rare decks that way.

Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:00 am

Actually I saw both of the Blacks Factor decks, but one was way overpriced whilst the other was auctioned. I remember it is the one that doesn't have the fairly generic red back with "Blacks Factor" diagonal several times overlapping in white.

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:35 am

Mike Ratledge wrote:Actually I saw both of the Blacks Factor decks, but one was way overpriced whilst the other was auctioned. I remember it is the one that doesn't have the fairly generic red back with "Blacks Factor" diagonal several times overlapping in white.

Was it the "Jack and Jill" one?

Wed Mar 12, 2014 11:19 am

Actually, good point: I forgot - I got one "J&J" deck, and another that appears to be the same cards in a different tuck, but hard to tell. Both are sealed, and I just don't open single decks unless I have another copy. Here's some pix (including the one that was $50 I passed on). I paid around $25 for the other two. The 'rather plain' one with the red & white front is the one that they wanted $50 for, all four are still on ebay except the one that has the diagonal cut look tuck. Each is a different seller and it's odd that I've never seen any of then before and suddenly they all show up at once, really. The deck I paid for is also available, but it's $48 from the other seller used, and mine's new.

I always forget that it flips them around when they post, the bottom two I got, the top two are front & back of the one I passed on...

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 7:55 am

Thanks for posting those, Mike! I'm not positive, but I think that the first two pics are what mine looked like. front and back.

Thu Mar 13, 2014 9:38 am

RSLancastr wrote:Thanks for posting those, Mike! I'm not positive, but I think that the first two pics are what mine looked like. front and back.

Hard to say, it's possible that two have the same cards inside. I think I remember you showing two varieties? Maybe not...

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 11:51 am

Mike Ratledge wrote:
RSLancastr wrote:Thanks for posting those, Mike! I'm not positive, but I think that the first two pics are what mine looked like. front and back.
Hard to say, it's possible that two have the same cards inside. I think I remember you showing two varieties? Maybe not...

No, I think that I have only posted the one. Perhaps you are thinking that "Many Rivers To Cross" (another Afrocentric deck I've posted here) was another version of "Blacks Factor"?

==========[ ManyRiversToCross ]==========

I actually have five or six different decks with Afrocentric courts. In addition to "Blacks Factor" and "Many Rivers to Cross", I have "Sheba" (a striking deck in which all of the kings are King Hannibal, all of the Queens the Queen of Sheba, and I forget who all of the Jacks are), "Cards of Color" (in which the courts' garb is VERY colorful), "The Race Cards" (in which some of the courts are Black/African/AA and some are White/Caucasian), a deck for an African airline, with African natives of various tribes on the courts, "Frozen Court - The Aethiopic Rendering" (a deck from an African-American Fraternal organization), and a few others I don't remember enough about to describe here.

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 2:41 pm

Here's a story I thought people here might enjoy:

First, you need to understand that I know almost NOTHING about Sports of any kind.

So, whenever my first wife and I played the original Trivial Pursuit game, the Green ("Sports & Leisure") wedge was almost ALWAYS the last one I would earn, and "Sports & Leisure" was ALWAYS the category she would pick for my "game-winning question".

One evening, four of my high school friends were visiting us, and the six of us started up a game of Trivial Pursuit.

My wife clued them in on my "category weakness", but she really didn't need to, since I earned my other five wedges in pretty short order, but had to try for my Green ("Sports & Leisure") wedge several times before I lucked into a Sports question to which I happened to know the answer.

After that, when I finally landed in the center of the board, their choosing a "Sports & Leisure" question for my "game-winning question" was pretty much a no-brainer.

But when my friend Dennis started reading my question aloud, it was:

"In a standard deck of playing cards...", and my wife and our four friends all shouted things like "AWWW!" and "AWWW, MAN!!", knowing that I had won.

The full question turned out to be "In a standard deck of playing cards, which are the "one-eyed jacks?"

I couldn't resist relishing the moment by rubbing it in, and so gave a mini-lecture that began something like this:

Smug RSLancastr wrote: Well, that would, of course, depend on what they mean by "a standard deck of playing cards", as many countries and regions around the world have their own "standard" deck of playing cards, much different than our own."

There were moans, groans, and comments like "get it over with!" and "just give him the damned wedge!!", so I put them out of their misery:

Smugger RSLancastr wrote: But they are probably referring to the type of deck that is "standard" here in America and in the UK, which is sometimes referred to by collectors as "The International Pattern", in which case..."

At this point, there were pointed comments about a time limit on answering a question, so I said

Game-winning RSLancastr wrote: ...the answer is The Jacks of Hearts and Spades!

Dennis confirmed that I had the answer right, and there were loud raspberries and cries of "No fair!" all around as I triumphantly placed the final, Green wedge into my playing piece.

See my collection @ Portfolio52 · Thu Mar 13, 2014 3:08 pm

Haha - awesome

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 4:22 pm

It was one of those rare moments of perfection in life, you know?

Thank goodness for "& Leisure"!

Thu Mar 13, 2014 5:01 pm

RSLancastr wrote:
Mike Ratledge wrote:
RSLancastr wrote:Thanks for posting those, Mike! I'm not positive, but I think that the first two pics are what mine looked like. front and back.
Hard to say, it's possible that two have the same cards inside. I think I remember you showing two varieties? Maybe not...
No, I think that I have only posted the one. Perhaps you are thinking that "Many Rivers To Cross" (another Afrocentric deck I've posted here) was another version of "Blacks Factor"?

==========[ ManyRiversToCross ]==========

I actually have five or six different decks with Afrocentric courts. In addition to "Blacks Factor" and "Many Rivers to Cross", I have "Sheba" (a striking deck in which all of the kings are King Hannibal, all of the Queens the Queen of Sheba, and I forget who all of the Jacks are), "Cards of Color" (in which the courts' garb is VERY colorful), "The Race Cards" (in which some of the courts are Black/African/AA and some are White/Caucasian), a deck for an African airline, with African natives of various tribes on the courts, "Frozen Court - The Aethiopic Rendering" (a deck from an African-American Fraternal organization), and a few others I don't remember enough about to describe here.

Yep, that _is_ the one I was think about, Robert. I knew that I had seen another deck that was "Afrocentric" as they put it on the deck tuck itself for the "Blacks Factor" deck, or at least the one I found with the diagonal looking red lower portion.

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Thu Mar 13, 2014 6:19 pm

Yes, Mike, "Afrocentric" is the correct word (I used it in my post above). I first learned of it around 1996 or 1997, when I was a member of Net Noir, AOL's then-new "Afrocentric web community".

www.dictionary.com wrote: Afrocentric
centered on Africa or on African-derived cultures, as those of Brazil, Cuba, and Haiti

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Fri Mar 14, 2014 10:56 pm

Here's one "from the vault" - but it isn't a deck of playing cards!

==========[ TarocchiMarvel (Marvel Tarot) ]==========

=====[ ABOUT THE DECK ]=====
I have only a handful of Tarot decks in my collection - perhaps a dozen at most.

Some I buy for unique courts.

Others, such as this one, I buy because they have clever Trumps.

In a Tarot deck, the "Trumps" (sometimes mistakenly called the "Major Arcana") are twenty-two cards (sometimes numbered 0-XXI) depicting such archetypical images as The Fool, The Magician, Strength, The Moon, The Sun, The Star, The Emperor, The World, and so on.

With a "themed" Tarot deck such as this one, the images chosen to represent these Archetypes must also fit into the deck's theme (in this case, Marvel Comics).

My "grid" scans usually contain eight images: a Heart card, a Club card, a Diamond card, a Spade card, a Joker, a card Back, an "additional" card, and the front of the deck's Box.

Since this deck consists only of the twenty-two Trumps, I chose images which, to me, spoke of those categories (YMMV):

==[ Heart ]==
L'IMPERATRICE (THE EMPRESS) - III

Sue Storm: One of the Superhero team known as The Fantastic Four, she is also known as The Invisible Girl.

I chose this card to represent Hearts because The Invisible Girl is the "heart" of the Fantastic Four, and because her holding a rose here brought the traditional Queen of Hearts to my mind.
==[ Club ]==
IL SOLE (THE SUN) - XIX
Thor: God of Thunder.

I chose this card to represent Clubs because Thor's hammer made me think of a club.

==[ Diamond ]==
GLI AMANTI (THE LOVERS) - VI
Spiderman and his girlfriend, Mary Jane.

I'm not sure why I chose this card to represent Diamonds.

==[ Spade ]==
Gambit:

==[ Joker ]==
IL MATTO (THE FOOL) - 0
Wolverine.

==[ Back ]==
The card back, a double-ended image of a levitating Doctor Strange

==[ Additional ]==
One of three Title cards, it reads:

TAROCCHI
MARVEL

22 Arcani Maggiori realizzati
a china da Claudio Villa
Colore di Luca Poli e Claudio Villa

LO SCARABEO
TAROCCHI D'ARTE

a cura di Pietro Alligo
Torino 1995
...which translates to:

MARVEL TAROT

22 Major Arcana made in China by Claudio Villa Color of Luca Poli and Claudio Villa

LO SCARABEO
TAROT ART

by Pietro Alligo Turin 1995

==[ Box ]==
The card box.

Unread post by **vasta41** » Sat Mar 15, 2014 10:52 pm

I really like the African themed courts. I'd love to see a modern deck with African courts.

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 12:40 am

vasta41 wrote:I really like the African themed courts. I'd love to see a modern deck with African courts.

What do you mean by a "modern deck"?

RSLancastr · Unread post by **RSLancastr** » Sun Mar 16, 2014 3:09 am

Okay, here are about a hundred Bike decks from "the vault".

They are all decks which I purchased in the last two or three years and so will be familiar to most here.

Enjoy,

UC Featured Collector for Mar/April 2014 - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

Re: UC Featured Collector for March/April - Robert Lancaster

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