Introduced in 1918 and apparently withdrawn from circulation in 1918.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 The decks were printed in 1917, and evidently only given an extremely limited release before being withdrawn from circulation.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, Big Gun, and Invincible.
Only seven complete decks from the entire War Series are known to exist today. One of the seven is a red Flying Ace deck, pictured below. There was also apparently a blue Flying Ace deck, but that one has been parted out for singles (to use an automotive term). As a result, blue singles appear on the market from time to time. I have only seen one red Flying Ace single offered, an ace of spades. This suggests a red deck was also parted out for singles but it’s odd that, as far as I know, not a single other red Flying Ace card from that deck has surfaced. See the red ace of spades in the last image, below.
The second image shows a couple of cards from other manufacturers with a similar theme. The card pictured on the left is called “Democracy.” Lee Asher wrote an informative article about the back design in Issue 35 of Card Culture (October 2017):
With the goal of setting out to publish an all-American deck of playing cards, patriotic artist James C. Gaffney succeeded in spades (no pun intended). Replacing the traditional cards with Ace airmen, Navy officers & Red Cross nurses, this deck was eventually granted a U.S. patent in 1918 (see paperwork below) and called the Democracy Deck. Because Gaffney absolutely had no means of manufacturing playing cards, he allowed Russell Playing Card Company to produce the deck for him. Gaffney’s deck was printed in various colors such as rose, blue, purple & gray. They were also advertised as coming with a heavy linen gilt-edge. God bless America!
SALES DATA
A blue Flying Ace sample card sold on eBay for $100 on January 23, 2018. These War Series sample cards only appeared in the 1917/18 edition of the U.S. Playing Card Co.’s sample books, and should therefore be considered among the most rare of all sample cards. See the Flying Ace sample card in the final image, below.
