Method and apparatus for making personalized playing cards

An apparatus and method for producing personalized playing card decks. A plurality of front printing plates having card face printing images thereon are provided. One back plate is provided having a plurality of different card back printing images. The front sides of a plurality of card stock sheets are printed with the front plates. The sheets are reversed and the unprinted back sides are printed with the single back plate. The sheets are collated into one stack. The stack is cut into individual decks.

DESCRIPTION 
TECHNICAL FIELD 
The invention relates to a method and apparatus for making playing cards of 
the type which are assembled into a deck of cards wherein each card in the 
deck has a different, unique face side and a common, decorative back side. 
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
A conventional deck of playing cards, such as a poker deck, contains 
fifty-two different cards arranged in four suits of Ace through King and 
two wild cards typically called Jokers. Thus, a typical deck has 
fifty-four playing cards. Each card in a deck, except for the Jokers, has 
a unique face side. The back side of each card in the deck, however 
typically has a common arbitrary design. 
Card decks of this type are conventionally produced by offset or 
lithographic printing processes which utilize printing plates or dies to 
produce the face and back sides of the cards on sheets of card stock 
material. 
FiG. 1 illustrates a printing plate set 20 including the arrangement of 
playing card printing images on a front plate or die 20a and a rear plate 
or die 20b. 
The front plate comprises a matrix array of card face printing images. The 
array has six columns and nine rows of image which produce fifty-four card 
face images on a sheet of card stock material. The cards are arranged in 
fours suits of cards, Ace through King. Two Jokers are in the lower right 
hand corner of the plate. 
The back plate has fifty-four corresponding, identical back images. The 
back images are shown as geometric, hexagon designs for simplicity. More 
typically, the card back image is a highly fanciful design. 
When using this technique, the face or front side of a sheet of card stock 
having the same exterior dimensions as the perimeters of the plates shown 
in FIG. 1 is printed on its front and reverse sides with the front and 
back plates, respectively. Thus, a sheet of card stock material having all 
the images of the front plate on the front side and all the images of the 
back plate on the back side is produced. The sheet is then cut along the 
divisions between the images to produce individual cards and the cards are 
assembled into a deck. Each card in the deck has a unique face side and a 
common decorative back side. 
The cost of the printing plates is quite high. Such plates can cost on the 
order of hundreds of dollars each. However, when this conventional 
technique is used, the cost of the plates can be amortized over the useful 
life of the plates. On a per deck produced basis, the cost of the plates 
is reasonable if a large number of identical deck are printed. 
The above printing technique is limited in that the cost of a single 
printing is quite high because only one deck is produced for each 
printing. As previously stated, this is not a disadvantage as long as a 
large number of decks are printed and the cost of the plates is 
distributed among the decks. However, this means that each deck must have 
the identical back design shown in FIG. 1. For example, if it were desired 
to place a specialized image on the back of a deck of cards, such as a 
photograph of a child or a picture of a valuable possession, then the cost 
of printing one deck would be equal to the cost of manufacturing a back 
plate. The cost could only be amortized and reduced to a reasonable cost 
per deck if a large number of decks are produced. 
Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that a simple retail consumer would 
want to purchase hundreds of decks having one personalized picture on the 
back side of each deck. Therefore, the prior art method of printing 
playing cards has precluded personalization of card decks in this manner. 
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION 
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus 
for producing high quality playing cards having personalized, decorative 
back sides at a reasonable cost on a per deck basis. 
The invention achieves this object, and other objects and advantage which 
will become apparent from the description which follows, by utilizing a 
printing plate set having a plurality of different front plates for 
producing card faces on the front side of card stock sheets. One 
corresponding back plate is provided having a plurality of different, 
decorative card back printing images for producing card backs on the 
reverse sides of the card stock sheets. The card back printing images on 
the back plate are positioned to register with the card face images on the 
front plate. The decorative card back printing image are preferably 
personalized pictures supplied by different customers. The printed sheets 
are collated into a single stack and the stack is cut into individual 
decks. 
The front plates may be used indefinitely to print the front sides of card 
stock sheet material. The back plate is used to print decorative, card 
back images on the reverse side of the sheets which are personalized 
according to customer orders. The printing images on the front plates are 
positioned so that a different card face image appears at corresponding 
locations on the different front plates. In this way, the printed sheets 
can be collated into one stack wherein each card location has a complete 
card deck thereat. The stock is then cut with a cutting die to separate 
the stacked images into individual decks. Because all of the cards in a 
deck are cut by the same portion of the cutting die, the size of the cards 
in each deck is quite uniform. The cost of the back plate can be divided 
among the number of decks produced having different, decorative card back 
images. 
For example, in one of the preferred embodiments of the invention a set of 
printing plates is disclosed for producing a deck having fifty two cards 
of Ace through King in fours suits and two Jokers. There are fifty three 
front plates, the first fifty two front plates each having a different 
card face printing image thereon for one of the cards in the deck. The 
fifty third plate has Joker printing image thereon and is used twice per 
printing. The card face printing images are reproduced on each plate an 
equal number of times to produce the same number of decks per printing. A 
corresponding back plate is provided having a plurality of different, 
decorative card back printing images which are positioned to correspond to 
the images on the front plates. One on back plate is provided. 
Fifty-two sheets of card stock material are each printed on one side with a 
different one of the first fifty-two front plates. The fifty-third front 
plate is provided with printing images of the Joker card and is used to 
print one side of two additional sheets of card stock material to produce 
two Jokers for each card deck. Thus, the front sides of fifty-four sheets 
of card stock material are printed with card faces. Each sheet has a 
different card image thereon, reproduced a plurality of times. 
The sheets are then all reversed so that the unprinted sides are positioned 
for printing. These reverse sides are then all printed with the single 
back plate. The sheets are then collated into a single stack. A complete, 
collated deck exists at each card location in the deck. The stack is then 
cut into individual decks by a cutting die. Each card in each of the decks 
has a unique, face side. Each card in each of the decks, however, has a 
common personalized back side and the card backs differ from deck to deck. 
The front plates can be reused to produce any number of decks desired. The 
cost of the back plate can be divided among the number of deck produced. 
If, for example, the plates have images arranged in a 9.times.6 matrix 
array, and each card back printing image on the back plate is different, 
the cost of the back plate can be divided among fifty-four decks. 
Therefore, it is possible to have fifty-four different customers each 
desiring a single deck having cards with a common, personalized back side. 
The cost of the back plate is divisible among fifty-four different 
customers.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION 
FIG. 2 illustrates an embodiment of a partial printing plate set, generally 
indicated at reference numeral 10, in accordance with the present 
invention. One front plate 10a of a plurality of front plates is shown in 
the left-hand side of the figure. A back plate 10b is shown in the 
right-hand side of the figure. These figures are schematic in nature and 
depict the arrangement and location of printing images, such as printing 
images 12a and 12b which are used in a photolithographic, offset or other 
printing process to produce images on a sheet of card stock material (not 
shown). Offset, lithographic and other methods for printing images are 
well known and are not considered part of the invention. The invention 
resides in the arrangement of the printing images 12a and 12b on the 
printing plates or dies and the steps used in producing card decks having 
individualized, decorative back sides. In this disclosure, the term 
"plate" or "die" is to be understood as including any structure or device 
which may be used to produce printed images on card stock material. 
In order to more clearly describe the embodiment of the invention shown in 
FIG. 2, the plates 10a and 10b will be described for use in printing a 
plurality of playing card decks having fifty-two different cards of Ace 
through King in four suits and two additional Joker cards. 
As shown in FIG. 2, front plate 10A has fifty-four printing images 12a 
arranged in six columns and nine rows. The front printing image 12a is the 
unique face side Ace of Diamonds in the deck. This image is repeated at 
each location indicated on the front plate. Fifty-one other plates having 
the remaining unique card faces are produced and have their printing 
images arranged as shown for front plate 10a. The fifty-third plate is 
produced with printing images of the Joker card thereon in the same 
locations as shown for front plate 10a having the Ace of Diamonds. These 
plates are used to print the front sides of fifty-four sheets of card 
stock material. 
Each one of the first fifty-two sheets of card stock material is printed 
with a different one of the fifty-two front plates. The fifty-third and 
fifty-fourth sheet are printed on their front sides with the front plate 
having the Joker printing images. Thus, fifty-four sheets of card stock 
material are produced. On each sheet there are fifty-four identical images 
of a single card face. 
The sheets are then reversed and printed in a conventional manner with the 
back plate 10b. The back plate 10b has a plurality of different printing 
images 12b. The images are represented by different geometric patterns, 
but are preferably individualized pictures, such as children, pets or 
other images which customers may wish to have imprinted on the card backs 
of playing cards. Each one of the images 12b is different. However, if a 
customer requests two decks or more decks with the same back image, then 
the desired back image can be duplicated. 
After the reverse sides of the fifty-four printed stock sheets have been 
printed with the back plate 10b,there are fifty-four decks on the sheet 
having identical card face sides and different decorative back sides. The 
sheets are then collted into a single stack. A complete, collated deck 
exists at each card location in the stack. The stack is then cut by a 
conventional cutting die into individual decks. There are fifty-four decks 
each having a different, decorative card back image thereon. However, 
within each deck the card back images are identical and are the 
personalized images desired by the customer. Because the cards of each 
deck are cut by the same cutting die, the uniformity of card size within 
each deck is quite good. 
The method for printing the card sheet material disclosed is a highly 
cost-effective method for producing individualized playing card decks. In 
the embodiment of FIG. 2, assume that each different, decorative card back 
printing image 12b represents an order from a different customer. In this 
case, the cost of the back plate 10b can be divided among fifty-four 
different customers. The front plates 10a can be used over and over again 
to produce card face images on the front side of card stock material. Only 
the back plate 10b need be replaced to produce cards having different 
decorative back sides. Further savings are achieved because each deck is 
collated before the stack is cut. In the prior art, the cards are cut 
first and then collated into decks. 
The prior art method of producing card decks is cost-prohibitive if adapted 
to producing card decks having individualized card backs. The prior art 
front plate 20a and back plate 20b are shown in the left and right-hand 
sides of FiG. 1, respectively. Front plate 20a has fifty-two different 
front printing image 22a arranged in four suits of Ace through King. The 
last two printing images 24a and 26a are the Joker printing images. A rear 
plate 20b has fifty-four identical back printing images 22b arranged in 
rows and columns to correspond to the position of the front printing 
images 22a on the front printing plate 20a. In this prior art method, a 
single sheet of card stock material is printed with the front printing 
plate 20a. The sheet is then reversed to expose the unprinted, reverse 
side of the sheet and is printed with the back printing plate 20b. The 
sheet is then cut into individual cards and the cards assembled into a 
deck. Thus, with each printing only one card deck is produced, and each 
card in the deck has the identical, decorative card back shown on back 
plate 20b. 
If the images on the prior art back plate 20b represent a single customer, 
then the cost of printing a deck of cards for that customer is equal to 
the cost of back plate 20b. Although the front plate 20a may be used over 
again to produce other decks, a new back plate 20b must be produced for 
each new customer. Also, an expensive, high quality cutting die is 
required to produce a card deck having cards of uniform size. 
Because the cost of these printing plates can be hundreds of dollars, it is 
not cost-effective to use the prior art method to produce a single, 
personalized card deck. When using the prior art method, the only way to 
reduce the cost of a deck is to produce a large number of decks having the 
same back images. From a commercial point of view, it is unlikely that any 
single customer is willing to purchase a sufficient number of decks having 
the same back image so as to reduce the cost per deck to a reasonable 
amount. 
The method of the present invention illustrated in FIG. 2 has a cost per 
deck of only 1/54 that of the prior art method. Thus, the cost of 
producing each deck is reduced to a commercially viable amount. 
FIG. 3 illustrates an alternate embodiment 30 of the invention shown in 
FIG. 2. In this embodiment, a single front plate 30a is shown as having a 
plurality of front printing images 32a. The front plate 30a is smaller 
than the front plate 10a in FIG. 2. The same number of front plates are 
necessary to produce complete decks as is necessary in FIG. 2. 
A back plate 30b is shown on the right-hand side of the figure. The back 
plate has a plurality of different card back printing images 32b. The 
images are shown in geometric form for ease of understanding, but are 
preferably personalized images which a customer desires to have printed on 
the back of his or her personalized deck. As in FIG. 2, the images are 
positioned to correspond to the positions of the card front printing 
images 32a on the front plate 30a. In this embodiment, the images are 
arranged in a matrix having four columns and six rows. Thus, only twenty 
four different, decorative card back printing images are needed to begin 
production. The same printing procedure is followed as is described above 
for FIG. 2. In this case, however, only twenty four different decks 
(instead of fifty-four) will be produced and the cost of back plate 30b 
must be divided among twenty four different customers. Thus, in this 
embodiment the cost of producing an individual deck is 1/24 that of the 
prior art. A cost savings over the embodiment of FIG. 2 results because 
the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 requires a smaller cutting die. 
FiG. 4 illustrates a third embodiment 40 of the invention. In this 
embodiment, a total of twenty-seven front plates and one back plate are 
required to produce a poker deck having fifty-four cards. Two exemplary 
front plates, 40a and 40b of the first twenty-six front plates are 
illustrated. Each of the exemplary front plates has two different types of 
card face printing images thereon which divide the first twenty-six front 
plates in to upper and lower halves. Front plate 40a has in its upper half 
the first card front printing image 41a, the Ace of Spades. The lower half 
of front plate 40a has a second card front printing image 42a, the Ace of 
Clubs. The Ace of Club images 42a are inverted relative to the Ace of 
Spade images 41a; the significance of this will be discussed below. The 
front plate 40a represents the first of twelve additional plates which 
have the remaining card front images One of Spades through King of Spades 
in the upper half of the plate and the One of Clubs through the King of 
Clubs in the lower half of the plate. 
Front plate 40b represents the fourteenth front plte in the series of 
plates and has in its upper half the card front printing images 46b, the 
Ace of Hearts. In its lower half, the front plate 40b has lower printing 
images 48b of the Ace of Diamonds. The next twelve plates in the series 
(i.e., plates fifteen to twenty-six) contain the printing images of the 
One of Hearts through King of Hearts in the upper half of the plates and 
the One of Diamonds through King of Diamonds in the lower half of the 
plates. Thus, in the first twenty-six front plates of the set all of the 
unique cards of a conventional poker deck are represented. A 
twenty-seventh plate has all Joker printing images thereon and is used to 
produce the Joker cards. 
When using this embodiment, the first twenty-six front plates are used to 
print two sets of card stock sheets (i.e., fifty-two sheets). The 
twenty-seventh Joker front plate is then used to print two additional 
sheets wwith Jokers thereon. The second set of twenty-six sheets 
(duplicates of the first twenty-six sheets) is then collated into a stack, 
inverted face side up relative to the first twenty-six sheets and placed 
under the first twenty-six sheets. Upon reflection, it will be apparent 
that the resulting one stack of collated sheets has a complete card deck 
at each card location in the stack except for the Joker images. The 
remaining two Joker sheets are therefor placed at the bottom of the stack 
to complete the decks. The resulting stack is then inverted to expose the 
unprinted reverse sides of the sheets and is printed with the back plate 
32b of FIG. 3. The stack of sheets, now printed on both the front and 
reverse sides can be cut with a cutting die as previously described to 
produce the individual decks. Although the individual decks in this case 
are collated, only the decks originally located in the upper half of the 
sheets will present the suits in the preferred order by starting off with 
the Spade suit. 
It has been previously noted that the Ace of Club printing images 42a are 
reversed relative to the Ace of Spade images 41a. This arrangement is 
preferred so that when the second stack of collated sheets printed by the 
fourteenth through twenty-sixth plates (represented by the leadoff front 
plate 40b) will have its Ace of Heart card properly oriented with the Ace 
of Club card. The Joker plate also has the Joker images in the upper half 
of the plate inverted relative to the Joker printing images in the lower 
half of the plate to maintain the correct orientation of the cards. While 
this arrangement is desirable, it is not necessary because once the cards 
are shuffled, the relative positions of the non-symmetrical face cards 
will become disordered. 
As with the previous embodiments, the third embodiment 40 shown in FIG. 4 
is advantageous in that each of the decks is provided with the 
individualized images shown in back plate 32b. Furthermore, the cards in 
each of the decks is cut by the same portion of the cutting die so that 
the uniformity of cards within an individual deck is quite good. 
FIG. 5 illustrates another embodiment of the invention which utilizes the 
fundamental concept of producing a stack of printed sheets wherein each 
card location in the stack has a complete deck thereat. Two exemplary 
front plates are generally indicated at reference numerals 50a and 50b. 
They represent the first and fifty-fourth front plates in a series of 
fifty-four front plates for printing the front sides of fifty-four card 
stock sheets. In this embodiment, the back plate 10b of FIG. 2 is used to 
print the reverse sides of the sheet. 
In the first front plate 50a of the series, the printing images 52a of all 
of the cards (including the Jokers) of a typical poker deck are laid out 
in a sequence. As an example only, the cards are laid out in numerical and 
suit order. With each successive front plate in the series, the card face 
printing images 52a are shifted one place to the right (clockwise). The 
last image 53a in the sequence is shifted (as shown by arrow 54a) to the 
upper left-hand corner position 55a, as shown. 
The fifty-fourth front plate 50b illustrates the position of the printing 
images after fifty-three such shifts. Note that by shifting the printing 
images 52b one additional place would result in the position shown for the 
first front plate 50a. 
In this embodiment, fifty-four sheets of card stock material are printed on 
their front sides with the fifty-four front plates. These printed sheets 
are then collated into one stack and inverted to reveal their reverse 
sides which are printed with back plate 10b of FIG. 2. As with the 
previous embodiments, a complete card deck exists at each card location in 
the stack. Furthermore, each individual deck has the card back image 12b 
which corresponds to its position in the stack. The stack is then cut with 
a conventional cutting die to separate the stack into separate decks. 
This embodiment is less preferred than the other embodiments for producing 
conventional poker or pinochle decks because in most of the decks the 
leadoff card is not the preferred Ace of Spades. However, the cards in 
each deck are sequentially ordered and once the preferred leadoff card in 
a deck is located, the remaining cards can easily be transposed to 
preserve their preferred ordering. 
In all of the above embodiments, the basic concept of printing card stock 
sheets with a plurality of front plates, reversing the sheets and printing 
the reverse sides with one back plate having a plurality of difference, 
personalized images is used. This method results in a plurality of printed 
sheets which are assembled into one stack which has a complete card deck 
at each card location in the stack. By utilizing this process, high 
quality individualized card decks can be produced at a reasonable cost. 
Although a conventional poker deck has been used to describe the preferred 
embodiment, the apparatus and method disclosed can be used to produce 
personalized card decks of any type. 
In view of the above, it will be appreciated that other variations and 
embodiments of the invention are contemplated. Therefore, the scope of the 
invention is not to be limited by the above description, but is to be 
determined by the claims which follow.