Introduced in 1891. Discontinued in 1943. Acorn is one of the early Bicycle back designs that features the League of American Wheelmen logo of the Bicycle wheel with three wings. Please see the League Back page for more information.
Pictured below is a set of four colored Acorn backs. These were produced by a British card manufacturer, Chas. Goodall. While I assume that the USPCC is the originator of this design, I have no direct evidence other than the knowledge that Acorn was one of the earliest Bicycle back designs. I am also not clear how both versions of the Acorn back were apparently marketed in the United Kingdom simultaneously without a copyright issue arising. Thanks to a collector friend for the Goodall information.
The next image shows a comparison between a red Acorn card that was offered on eBay and a standard Acorn. I didn’t notice until months later that the red card was backwards compared to the standard Acorn design. This sometimes happens when a back design is counterfeited. The design is photographed and a printing plate is made from the resulting image. When printed, this plate makes a reversed image. See the Knock-Offs page for examples of counterfeit Rider and New Fan backs with reversed images.
The last image, below, shows the box for the Heritage Series reissue of Acorn. The box design is modeled after a US8c box, but the color is non-standard (for Bicycle cards anyway).
SALES DATA
A red US8b Acorn joker sold on eBay for $60 on 10/21/16. Any US8b joker is relatively rare, so I believe this was a reasonable hammer price.
A brown US8b Acorn deck (no joker, no box) sold on eBay for $137 on 11/15/16. That may seem like a low price for a brown Bicycle deck, but brown and green Acorns are actually the most common of all the brown and green decks.
A blue US8a Acorn ace of spades sold on eBay for $78 on 4/23/17. That, to me, was a surprisingly high price.
A VG green US8b Acorn deck sold on eBay for $76 on 12/14/17, which is probably the most reasonably priced green Bicycle deck ever, although as noted above, the Acorns are the least rare of such decks.
A set of three brown Acorn singles sold on eBay for $30 on 3/09/18
A brown Acorn single sold on eBay for $10 on 12/16/19
A VG red USd Acorn deck (no joker/no box) sold on eBay for $14 on 9/12/20
A VG- green USb Acorn deck (no joker/no box) sold on eBay for $64 on 9/16/20
