Ron the Yarn Spinner

 

A Box of Cards

 

A deck of playing cards is not just a box filled with fifty-two pieces of cardboard. These playing cards can become your friends in a card game, your accomplices in a magic trick, remind you of your travels, represent a prized addition to your card deck collection – and even represent something much bigger.

 

“Museum Room,”  is a misnomer used by our children to refer to the place in our home we call a parlor (“Frunch Room” in Chicagoease) because inside you can find assorted antiques, militaria from three wars,  an operating 1928 Candlestick Telephone, a restored 1936 Philo console radio, and other memorabilia. Some rearranging was needed recently in the parlor to find a place for Christmas decorations and it was then that I picked up my deck of vintage  Chicago and Northwestern Railway playing cards.( The card deck was a gift from my father-in-law, “Dad.”) At one time, railroads provided playing cards to riders as a complimentary item to entertain them when traveling across the U.S. It was also a souvenir. You took them home to promote the rail line to family and friends. Break out the deck, and it reminded you of your journeys on the C&NW Streamliner or maybe Santa Fe Railway’s Super Chief.

Dad, a retired electrical engineer, traveled cross country by train often for business, long before commercial aircraft filled the skies. He told me he would occasionally get a deck from a Pullman Porter who could later come by and announce, “ New York City, next. Gentlemen. Please, stand up…brushing for New York.” Brushing - it was a courtesy to ensure you looked good on arrival.

I am sure United Airlines wanted to encourage repeat business too  when a “stewardess”  gave me my Fly the Friendly Skies deck, or Delta, when I was  handed a  “Delta is Ready When You Are” card deck. Playing cards used to be the ubiquitous free item handed out on board a flight. These were the in-flight entertainment back in the days before audio, movies, and games. No matter if you are riding the rails or flying the  skies, however, you are not going to find any free decks of cards today.  Riders bring along their own  “devices”  for entertainment.

Playing cards always interested me. I know they have been around a while, started depending on whom you ask, sometime around the 9th, 11th, or maybe the 13th century. The enthusiasm for playing cards spread because everyone who saw them for the first time immediately liked them and  recognized how much fun they could be. They tried to get some for themselves, and they introduced card playing to others. Playing cards, however,  are shrouded in mystery hidden in glamour, fascination, history, and character. To most of the world, clues to this enigma are invisible with one deck dominating the modern world: The 52- card deck, four familiar suits, two colors, inflexible dimensions. But it is not the only deck. In others there are bells, and acorns and swords, cards that are circular or incredibly tall and thin, decks with more than a hundred or fewer than twenty-five cards. Given how much time we all are spending at home right now, the idea of a vast array of playing card variations, all with their own world of games, can be overwhelming and fascinating.

 

While playing cards are commonly used for playing card games. There is the potential for much more. They are a fun source of entertainment in magic tricks, like the ones I perform for my grandkids. They are also used in cardistry, (Card flourishing) card throwing, and building card houses; cards may also be  circulated as a means of helping to apprehend criminals and search for specific people.

Police departments, local governments, state prison systems, and even private organizations across the United States and other countries have created decks of cards that feature photos, names, and details of cold case victims or missing persons on each card. These decks are  sold to the public and even made available in prison commissaries, in the hope that an inmate (or anyone else) might provide a new lead. Cold case card programs have been introduced in well over a dozen  states including Oklahoma, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, and Rhode Island. Inmates refer to them as “Snitch Cards.”

War can be hell...and war can be absolute boredom. There are few better ways to pass the time than by playing cards. Anyone who served in the military and made it past basic training ended up in a game of cards with their fellow troops. Early military  decks were released depicting Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and (John Quincy) Adams as the kings of the deck. By the time of the Civil War, playing cards were in both camps and with easy access  to decks, alcohol, and firearms, a card cheat could make the game go very badly for himself. War shaped the way playing cards were printed, so players could hold a tighter hand and designs were added  to the plain backs so  cards could not be easily marked.

In 1898, the Consolidated Playing Card Company created a cheap deck and poker chips for troops deploying to the Spanish-American War. For World War I, the U.S. Playing Card Company released special decks just for a few specialties of service in the Great War, namely Artillery, Navy, Air Corps, and Tank Corps. The German High Command in WWI considered playing cards so important to morale, they called the cards kartonnen wapens – cardboard weapons.

Apart from boosting the troops’ morale, playing cards could be instructive. In WW II, troops were provided with cards produced by the United States Playing Card Company that featured silhouettes of American, British, German, and Japanese aircraft. Called “Spotter Cards,” these were considered essential to the war effort. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US military distributed  most-wanted Iraqi playing cards to help soldiers identify enemy leaders and decks of playing cards featuring pictures of suspected Russian war criminals  were provided to Ukrainian soldiers in 2022, replicating the same idea.

Playing Cards - from cartomancy, the oldest form of fortune telling, to just collecting and everything in between, including Space. (Yes, astronauts play cards “up there.”) To many of us, a deck of playing cards may seem simple enough, but this post offers some insight into the huge amount of history behind all  playing  cards, some of it kept secret for many years. Very secret. Interested? See my post. ”It’s in the Cards.”

 

God Bless America – Before it is too late.