Introduced in 1894. A lovely back design that has been revived several times since being discontinued in 1943.

Cupid was first issued in what collectors usually call the Sod back (click on the link to the left below). The version pictured here is called Crosshatch in reference to the design between the bicycle wheels that replaced the grass seen on the earlier version. It is common in red and blue, but very rare in green or brown. Even single cards in the latter colors are seldom seen. I recently (2017) noticed that the earliest US8b issue of the crosshatch Cupid has the same one-way design element as the Sod version of Cupid, described and shown on the Cupid Sod page. The first image, below, shows an example of this rare variant of Cupid.

The second image, below, shows the narrow version of Cupid issued in 1918 for pinochle compared to the standard back. I have never seen any complete decks of this narrow pinochle deck, although several back designs were shown as available in this size in the 1918 USPCC catalogue (see the New Fan back page for another example of this narrow back).

The third picture below shows a simplified red and gold version of Cupid released by USPCC in 1997. I have only seen this deck in red. It came in a cellophane wrapper without a box. A limited number were sold on eBay in the mid-2000s, but I haven’t seen it offered since then, so this version of Cupid is probably relatively scarce. A similar deck was released more recently in gold with red and blue backgrounds. This new gold version more closely resembles the original Cupid back, with greater detail in the design, distinguishing it from the 1997 deck. See the last image, below. Cupid was also rereleased by USPCC as one of several decks in the Heritage series.