jokercollection

Musical Jokers and some Dogs

2011-07-05T17:47:00.000-07:00

The top two jokers are a simple line drawing of a jester with a trumpet. It's from a very beautiful custom deck created by Wayne, a Baltimore music teacher. The other cards in the deck are illustrated with images of different instruments and have encoded in musical notation the number of the cards. It's an interesting idea. He sells them under the name Nana-Pie.

The bottom two jokers are of man's best friend and the art exxagerates the difference in perspective when you look at dogs' noses from different angles. The deck is copyright artist International and is called: The DOB Artist Collection.

Jesters and their Baubles

2011-07-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

Here are two pairs of jokers. Like so many decks, there are two jokers; one in black and white, the other in color.

The two top jokers have nice artwork of jesters holding cards and leaning on a ball. The back of the deck says Beaver Creek in Colorado. I fear that the scan of these jokers is a little fuzzy.

The lower two have two jesters decorated with the four suits (clubs, hearts, diamonds, and spades) holding their baubles. Baubles? Yes, I believe that the name for a jester's wand on which there is a little model of the jester's head is a bauble.

And I'll quote Wikipedia:

A bauble was originally a stick with a weight attached, used in weighing a child's toy, but especially the mock symbol of office carried by a court jester. This fool's bauble was a baton terminating in a figure of Folly with cap and bells, and sometimes having a bladder fastened to the other end. Subsequently it became a term for anything trivial or childishly folly.More recently the term means a virtually worthless decorative object.

2011-07-01T06:32:00.000-07:00

Each of these four playing card jokers are quite different. The shoe one on the top left is from a new shoe deck. The back (see the joker playing card back below) is an array of women's shoes. The joker carries the message that:

A Child's first steps are taken in sensible shoes that can become cherished momentoes when bronzed.

Frankly, that's a weird one to me. First of all, my kids all took their first steps barefoot. Secondly, does anyone really bronze old baby shoes? Who and why?

What can I say about the others?

The Mars M&M marketing people have had a really great few decades. Once they realized that melting in your mouth, not in your hands was not the be-all and end-all of marketing, they have personified the little M&Ms in a vast number of ways. From the recent edgy commercials where the grumpy M&M is staring at a little pretzel that apparently is going to be stuck up inside him, to four foot stand-up M&Ms in the supermarkets, they've been saturating us with their brand and their energetic broad diversifications into rice-based M&Ms, peanut butter M&Ms, mint M&Ms, almond-centered M&Ms, and even the pretzel-filled M&Ms. The M&M playing cards were bought at an M&M store just off Times Square in NYC in 2009.

Not much to say about the Mexican-themed joker or the spooky lady other than I really like them!

Inlaid Joker Boxes

2011-06-30T18:31:00.000-07:00

I bought the little one of these boxes (the faded one) in southern Spain in Dec 1987.

I acquired the second one on the Amalfi Coast in Italy in 2011.

I keeps jokers in them that need to be added to the collection. Its the second place place for them after they've been in my wallet for a few weeks.

A collection of jokers - Nine jokers

2010-03-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

Jokers with Balloons and Men Standing Around

2010-03-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

Trying to put text next to these jokers is a painful exercise for me since it reminds me that I have never properly curated the collection.

Where did these jokers eache come from?

What deck, what era, what manufacturer. There's so much that could and should be done with this collection.

The best observation that I can make about these jokers is that there are three old balloons and then some men.

What a joke!

Joker Collections, Playing Card Joker Websites and People

2010-03-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

Note - This is my second post on this topic of referencing other existing websites about jokers. http://jokercollection.blogspot.com/2009/01/joker-collections-others.html was my previous post. Neither of these posts reflects much real research. In looking at these sites, I notice that many are out of date, not kept up, and have lots of bad links to other sites that are defunct. And I noticed that nobody yet has references this little blog. Heh, I'm here!    : - <

52 Plus Joker   http://www.52plusjoker.org/    This site is a club with membership dues dedicated to collecting cards. it's $20/ year and includes a magazine. I think I'll join.

Playing-card History http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~daf/i-p-c-s.org/faq/history.php - The history of playing-cards is shown in the following series of pages, which were written by Ron Decker. Ron was curator of the museum (currently closed) at the United States Playing Card Co and is particularly interested in tarot cards. An email is listed there: faq@i-p-c-s.org

A digital museum of collecting http://www.dotpattern.com/gamecard/jokers/ - Another interesting site: Traditional jesters, troubadours and harlequins are displayed in the collection which continues with about 75 joker cards in the first five groups. Fool: also called jester, a comic entertainer whose madness or imbecility, real or pretended, made him a source of amusement and gave him license to abuse and poke fun at even the most exalted of his patrons." (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1995). This seems to be part of a digital museum of collecting, perhaps inactive.

Alta Carta The Alternative for the Playing Card Collector - http://www.altacarta.com/english/goal.html
These web pages were created for the playing card collectors who want to extend their collection. Of course also people are welcome who do not collect cards, but can offer something for sale. Playing cards are offered here for trade and sale. ... "Alta Carta" just seeks contact to collectors. On the other hand in these organisations culture and research is the most essential part of the activities and what concerns the enlargement of ones personal collection is practically ignored....We do thank you for taking the time to visit these pages. We would be delighted to welcome you again. Alta Carta January/May 2005

http://a_pollett.tripod.com/ Andy's Card Collections

Joker Playing Cards

2010-03-21T15:34:00.000-07:00

These jokers are a little art deco in style. They're very tightly designed with efficient trim logos. Several of the jokers have commercial branding: Blue Ribbon, California Club, Remy, NC, and a commerative for the founding of City of Chicago

M&M Jokers - How to count?

2009-02-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

don't actively collect jokers but still, I tend to keep getting them. Today for instance, I cleaned out my wallet. These six jokers were there, recently collected. The two M&M jokers were bought by me in New York and the M&M store. Now, who would have thought that an M&M themed store could possibly support the rent for a Times Square retail space.

The two top jokers are pretty common although the smaller joker, scanned upside down, is a little unusual.

The other pair of jokers are a little uncommon although not strikingly original or beautiful.

Now I have a technical question on joker collection. I would count these six jokers as six different jokers. The two M&M jokers have different color type. The others are each strikingly different in color although not in design.

Am I following the same counting conventions as other joker collectors?

Jokers - Page 4 - Horse jokers

2009-01-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

I themed each page in the joker collection. This is one of the equestrian themed pages.

Jokers of History

2009-01-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

The top three jokers on this page are of old balloons. The ones in position one and three are dated 1784 and 1803 (not the jokers, the images!). The look like old French engravings.

The bottom six are historical characters.

My wife and daughter are coming downstairs. I need to put this stuff away before they catch me at it. I'll scan more later if I can......

Jokers of Death & Destructions

2009-01-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

These somewhat surealistic jokers have a destruction and death theme. There are weapons and and a skeleton. Actually, they don't all have this theme. Again, I'm not sure who the picture is of. If you could tell me, I'd appreciate it.

Vivid bold jokers

2009-01-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

I like all nine of these jokers. Each has vivid bold imagery.

The hat joker reminds me of Dick Tracy.

Cheesy Cheapy jokers

2009-01-28T16:46:00.000-08:00

You can tell from the title of this page that these are not my favorites. Yes they're colorful

. They're also pretty common and all slightly silly.

The two that merit the most attention are in position one and three in the top row. It's a characterture of I'm not sure whom.

Jokers sitting cross legged

2009-01-28T16:43:00.000-08:00

These nine sitting jesters have long been favorites of mine. The three at the bottom are commonly seen. They have devilish look about them.

The six above them are slightly rarer. I think the middle row is pretty rare. The jester is holding his bauble in one hand and a card in another.

Modern art jokers

2009-01-28T16:33:00.000-08:00

These colorful jokers are amongst my favorites. I really like the colorful pair at the bottom.

They are from a "Beautiful Transformation Limited Edition Pak" created by Peter Wood. I believe the limited edition was only one thousand. From the UK.

Peter's work is gorgeous. My scan didn't do it justice so I pulled a picture from his website. Thanks Peter.

And whats with the HiddenMickey weirdness. Do something sane....collect jokers. lol.

Joker Collections - The others

2009-01-28T14:08:00.000-08:00

Heides Jokers - Amazing collection organized across 5 pages. Particularly cool are the oldies and hand painted.
Jokers Galore
Jesters Planet. Oddly stored at Kaboodle.
Dot Pattern Collecting Site - Joker Page - 22 Joker collections. Not updated since ...2005?
Huub Wolters
Paddy's jokers
Little Joker (Spanish)
Jos Jokers
Sezgi's Joker Blog

If you'd like to be mentioned, comment here and I'll approve it. I would appreciate it if you would also mention my little collection.

Jokers P5 - Some more patterns

2009-01-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

These jokers are slighly colorful and have more interesting patterns than the other pattern page.

Playing card jokers - page 3

2009-01-27T12:54:00.000-08:00

These jokers are all visually similiar, at least to my eye. I think of them as the simple design jokers.

Joker collection page 2

2009-01-26T12:50:00.001-08:00

This is the second page of the joker collection. By jokers, I'm talking about the joker from playing cards.

Musically themed jokers

2009-01-25T13:15:00.000-08:00

This page was organized as a musical instrumental with a

flute or banjo joker theme.

Joker - A musical theme

2009-01-25T13:02:00.000-08:00

I tried to group my jokers by theme when I put them in nine to page in the albums. This page of jokers has a musical them.

I've seen the other collections online. They are so much better curated than mine that I hesitate to show mine. OThers have studied, analyzed, categorized and they seem to know so much about the origin of each joker and the significance of so many details.

Me, I just collected the jokers and put them in albums. I'm sort of a low end joker collector

Jokers - Putting a bit of the collection online

2009-01-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

This is one of the first pages in my albums of jokers. I've noticed other collections on the web. I thought I'd try scanning a few pages and putting them up.

I would guess that I have about a thousand distinct jokers.