Introduced in 1918 and apparently withdrawn from circulation in 1918. Toward the end of the first World War, the United States Playing Card Company produced four “War Series” decks under the Bicycle brand to represent each of the branches of the U.S. armed services: Big Gun for the Army, Dreadnaught for the Navy, Flying Ace for the Air Force, and Conqueror (aka Invincible) for the Marine Corp. The decks were printed in 1917, and evidently only given an extremely limited release before being withdrawn from circulation. It is unknown why the decks were not circulated, but one theory is that they were intended to be distributed to the troops overseas, and USPCC destroyed their inventory of the War Decks when Armistice was declared in 1918. The other three designs in the War Series can be seen by clicking on these links: Dreadnaught, Flying Ace and Invincible.

In total, only seven of these extremely rare War Series decks are in collector’s hands today. Of the seven, there are two complete Big Gun decks, both red decks, shown below. This count was revised from one as of 2024, when a second red deck surfaced from the estate of a playing card collector in California.

Red singles appear from time to time, and I also have an empty red box, which together suggest that a red deck was probably parted out for singles at some point. I recently noticed that this empty box has a 1919 tax stamp, which contradicts my presumption that these War Series decks were withdrawn from circulation almost immediately. That makes the scarcity of these War Series decks even more puzzling. If they were available until 1919, why so few survivors?

USPCC released an excellent limited edition reproduction of this deck in both red and blue in 2011, complete with a faithful facsimile of the original box (see the promotional card below). 2,500 decks were produced in each color. The back design on the reissue is slightly reduced in size–the blue card above is from the reproduced deck. The finish on the reissue is Air Cushion (textured), whereas the original Big Gun was issued in Ivory finish (smooth). I believe USPCC intended to release the entire War Series, but as of 2024 the other three decks have not been reissued (this does not seem like a high priority for USPCC).

The final image shows a page from an original USPCC salesman’s sample book from 1918 showing the War Series cards from  the Bicycle playing card section (courtesy of Clay Boulware). Note that only the Big Gun back is an actual sample card. The marked sample cards from the War Series decks are sometimes the only cards from this series that collectors can buy, and even these are limited to the handful of 1917/18 sample books out there. War Series sample cards can fetch up to $400 each.  To see an alternate version of the War Series page from another 1917 salesman’s book, visit the Invincible page.