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.
New Fan was also issued in the 1960s (I believe) as a double deck under the USPCC Congress brand with blue and pink interpretations of the back design (see the picture, below). Standard red and blue decks were also available in the 1990s for a time.
I was not aware that this back design was offered in US8aa until I saw an ace of spades for sale on eBay in April of 2017. The ace sold for $32 with another old ace (also in poor condition) after 25 bids. This recent discovery puts the start date for New Fan at 1891, as noted above. See an image of the ace, below.
The third image below is from a 1918 salesman’s sample book. This is a pinochle back, and a narrower version of the standard New Fan design. Cupid, Expert and Rider were also available as pinochle decks in the narrower style that year.
The next image shows one of two variants of Bicycle decks I have found with Cuban tax stamps. I’m not sure of the date of the box shown below because the original deck is absent, but I would estimate 1940’s or 50’s. I have three Cuban Bicycle decks, two are blue New Fan decks and the third is a mint sealed blue Rider deck, which is posted on the Rider back page.
Jon Randall, a dealer in the UK, has once again found an interesting Bicycle-related card for me. The card, pictured in the image, below, is virtually identical to the New Fan back, except a pair of swallows is shown on the fan instead of a bicycle. If you look closely, the ornamental scrolls between the fans are more skillfully rendered than on the New Fan version of the design. This makes me wonder if the Swallow back might have been adapted for the Bicycle design. The Swallow deck was produced by Chas. Goodall, according to Jon, and the corresponding ace of spades is ca. 1890s. Without a more precise date, we have another Bicycle mystery. To visit Jon’s eBay playing card store, click here: Worldwide Playing Cards.
New Fan has been recently reissued in standard red and blue decks, as well as black with a white background and white with a black background (for a negative effect). The latter pair of decks feature the US8b style spade on the box. Dan and Dave also released a very attractive pair of New Fan decks, reddish brown and blue, respectively. These came in an old style embossed tuck case (see the last image, below).
SALES DATA
A MS (mint sealed) blue US8c New Fan deck in its wax paper wrapper, but oddly with no box, sold on eBay for $66 on 11/06/17. An identical red version, also with no box, was sold soon after for the same price.
A MS 1970s era blue US8e New Fan deck sold on eBay for $69 on 5/03/20.
A VG red US8d New Fan deck (no joker/no box) sold on eBay for $17 on 9/12/20.
A G+ red US8b New Fan deck (no joker/no box) sold on eBay for $41 on 9/30/20.
A New Fan tuck case printer’s block sold on eBay for $294 on 3/31/21. This block printed only the trademark ace and “New Fan Back.” The rest of the tuck case would have been printed in the second color, either red or blue depending on the color of the deck. Original printer’s blocks from playing cards are rare items and generally command a high price. See a photo of the printer’s block, below.
A VG red US8b New Fan deck in a US8aa box (no joker) sold on eBay for $365 on 5/02/21. The U.S. Printing Co. went out of business in 1894, but the the tax stamp on this deck is dated 3-1-95, so I would guess that this was an original pairing of a new U.S. Playing Card Co. deck put in a leftover U.S. Printing Co. box.
