The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-02-14
DESIGNS ron CARD-BAoKs.
Card Players Prefer the Familiar
Baclz-superstitiOn About New
Ones
From the New York Sun.

Back-SuperstitiOn About New
Ones.
From the New York Sun.
The making of designs for the backs of
playing cards is one line of artistic work
in which novelty and originality count for
little. Something fresh and striking that
is practicable as well is welcomed eager
ly in all other fields of designing The car
pet, wall paper, cloth, and tapestry manu-
| facturers are always on the lookout for a
| novelty, but the playing card manufac-
| turer looks askance at new design no
| matter how artistic and taking.
| We have a dozen or more orders to give
out for prosperous clubs throughout the
country during the year. said a leading
card manufacturer and, outside of this,
We may possibly buy twenty or twenty
five original designs-just because they are
| too good to let slip, but that's about all
there is in the business for the card artist.
| we pay $lOO or more for club design that
| suits us, one that introduces the club col
ors and catch words cleverly and has gem
| uine merit. The wealthy clubs are liberal
when they went anything done that is out
| or the ordinary. Since the craze for popu-
lar sports, golf bicycling, and tennis, has
| struck the country we occasionally have
orders for number of individual packs,
with the backs sketched out in that sort of
| rig, with sticks and balls and wheels and
OIL tidt' ne mining lnGn out west Will
Duy CARDS sometimes that have on the
backs some of their peculiar accoutrements
! and symbols, and so will the ranchmen and
cowboys. They like design with spurs and
a quirt and lasso put in somewhere, or a
saddle and high-heeled boots. These de-
signs we have made to order by artists
whom we know but the outside artist who
| oilers designs does not sell a dozen a year.
Now here is design we bought yester-
day. You see 1t is really interesting. But
terhies, buttercups, grasshoppers, a daisy
held, the very thing for people to take
| with them for a camping-out trip, but Wen
make only few packs from 1T, and they
! will be drug in the market. How do l
| know? Oh, I've seen it tried too often
I've got out beautiful polo backs and foot
ball backs, yachting, hunting, and what
not, and never had return for the invest
ment People put cards like that, with
backs that are interesting, on side table
or else tuck them away in some convenient
| place. to be dragged out and shown as
curlosities when the main business of the
| evening is over, but, when card lovers
those VINO play in earnest sit down for a
I rubber they use the style of pack thew
are familiar with and accustomed to
Whether the buyers who come here to me
hail from San Francisco or Kansas Citv.
or Mexico, or Chicago, they all tell the
same tale. Their patrons all want new
cards of the same pattern backs that they
have always bought.
Yes, that's admirable genteel-looking.
artistic, and, all that they saw when /
snow them new design, but it would be
money thrown away for me to h11v n II
wouldn't sell. A San Francisco man to1d
me the other day that his folks were used
10 the angel backs and there was no use
trying TO sell them any other sort They
wouldn't think of sitting down to a game
using cards with new-style backs II
would spoil the luck Often. in the we'll
established clubs out there he saws Won
Win see a veteran player pull out a pack
OF angel backs from his pocket, insisting
on using them in place of the club cards
no matter now handsome. That middle
angel on the angel backs looks TO Won like
a goat? Well, so it does and it is a Goat
with a beard but the cards are called an
gel backs all the same. The Iilv' baclr &c
another design in high favor. We turn
out stacks of those, and they seem never
to tire of them.
Look over this sample book, he ,ddoa
opening ponderous leather-bacl1 voII1noe
IN mere are all the designs that have
dled and the very few that have lived 7
nave been in the business exactly TWENTY
eight years, and know a thing or I've
ABOUT card manufacturing. These aiob
colored ford backs are Austrian ana -
sian, and German cards. Some Of tber,
are as pretty and well done as miniatures
the crowned heads, men and women es
Gutcheohs oil great houses and all thas
all interesting, but none of them 90 ~
the trade Abroad as in this country
there are rev original models and sam
piles bought to look at and admire end
thousand ordinary hackneyed designs
| regarded as StandbyS and used ali 49,,
the kingdom. Go into any of the ta,oros
and assembly rooms in foreign countries
where the card players are really absorb
ed in game and you will find the sober
conventional backs in use. Those with the
| royal personages on them and the beautIS
full maidens and garlanded oxen are stuclx
away out of reach somewhere and forgot
ten.
They say that superstition is dead. and
that people no longer believe in luck and
unseen influences and all that but il ;,,n,t
| so in our business. A man NAV NOT he
| troubled if he has to begin ANYTHING ~, a
| Friday, and may not take the pains 10
| change his position before he looks at the
new moon, but when he has a skilled on
tponent at a game of cards he is particular
about the backs of the pack he uses. Ger
man or Austrian or American it's all The
| same.
ut looked as though the bottom had
dropped out of the playing card business
a couple of years ago. the manufacturer
| went on. Too much competition and va
rious other conditions got us in A prsrtv
tight place. We really ran the factory for
| nearly two years merely to keep the on
eratives together, not for any profit Our
| machinery is so perfect that it pays us
better TO make the full number of packs
than not. We had boxes piled up with
fine goods in expectation of the good time
coming Things are picking up again aow
and we're doing fair business, but things
are not likely to brighten for the card de-
slguer. There's an ingrained prejudice
! against new designs that it will be nard
10 rub out, and we won't have to change
| our machinery often. SO far as the card
! backs are concerned
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