Wheel No. 1
Introduced in 1887. Discontinued in 1907. Wheel No. 1 is a very pleasing graphic back design, featuring a high-wheel Penny Farthing bicycle, along with appropriate oil lamps. This design is common in red and blue, but quite rare in green and brown. Wheel No. 1 is one of several Bicycle back designs featuring the three […]
Sprocket No. 1
Introduced in 1899. Discontinued in 1905. This design is not hard to find in US8b or US8d. Less common in the later US8c version.
Snowflake
Introduced in 1904. Discontinued in 1918. It’s hard to believe this design ran for fourteen years; the only singles I have seen are from salesman’s sample books. I have one complete red deck, which is the only one I’ve ever seen. I purchased it at a pre-internet mail auction in the mid-1990s. It was part […]
Saddle
Introduced in 1908. Discontinued in 1910. This is a rare deck, and one of three two-tone designs that were released solely in the United Kingdom and France, based on where decks have been recently found. The other two designs are Chain and Handle-Bar. According to Mrs. Robinson, each of these designs was manufactured in only […]
New Fan
Introduced in 1891 (revised from 1894). Discontinued in 1980 — a very long run for an elegant, decorative back design. Over the years, New Fan has undergone some subtle revisions to the design, as can be seen in the first image, below. Thanks to Steve Bowling for noting the evolution of the New Fan design. […]
Motorcycle No. 1
Introduced in 1901. Discontinued in 1907. Blue decks show up with some regularity, but I have never seen a red deck or even a red single (except the red sample card shown below). Mrs. Robinson erroneously showed this deck as “Motorcycle No. 2.” The deck she called Motorcycle No. 1 is clearly a later issue, […]
Model No. 2
Introduced in 1907. Discontinued in 1927. A relatively common back design. As mentioned on the Model No. 1 page, the Model back was modified in this version to include a fully symmetrical wheel with four wings as the central motif. This corrected the previous version which had an asymmetrical wheel with three wings. But, the […]
Model No. 1
Introduced in 1895. Discontinued in 1907. Not uncommon in any of its red or blue iterations, although I have seen fewer blue decks than red. Decks are rarely found in green or brown, but singles in those colors do show up from time to time. Very similar in design elements to Racer No. 1. See […]
Margin Star No. 1
Introduced in 1893. Said to have been discontinued in 1907, although I am very skeptical. I have only seen this deck in US8, which would put the end date much earlier. This deck is extremely rare in any color. The only deck I have is a brown one, shown below. Steve Bowling has a green […]
Eagle
Issued in 1927 (revised from 1928, thanks to information from Clay Boulware). Discontinued in 1943 but revived in the 1990s for a Spades deck (see the second image, below), and a solitaire set. For a back design with such a long run, it is surprisingly (and extremely) hard to find. Until Clay sent me the […]