Appreciation
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday September 16, 1997
PLAY your cards right, it seems, and a collection of vintage playing cards may prove a rewarding investment. Certainly Sydney auctioneer Dalia Stanley had no difficulty raising $2,000 each for some decks from a sizable collection of playing cards and tarot cards formed by Roslyn Muir, a Riverina-based collector.
The sale, on August 31, saw all lots sold - an unusual event in the auction world. While attendance in the saleroom was small, there were numerous absentee bids and many of the lots went overseas. According to the auctioneer, several absentee bidders were prepared to go higher for the lots they secured.
Stanley's bread-and-butter business is regular auctions of furniture, ceramics and glass, usually from deceased estates.
The playing cards sale, which raised about $50,000, was perhaps no blockbuster, but it did emphasise the auctioneer's ability to research and market specialist collections in esoteric areas - Baxter printed potlids, for instance, were a theme of one of her sales in February. Stanley also offers regular specialist sales of dolls, trains and toys.
Many auctioneers tend to bundle such material into their general sales, which means
the catalogues are sketchy and the collection effectively sinks without trace - leaving the vendor disappointed.
Little is known about the origin of playing cards, although India, China and Egypt are all cited as possible sources. Some authorities suggest card games are a fusion of chess and dice.
The first appearance in Europe of playing cards seems to have been in Spain in the 14th century. Stanley says that, in the 1380s, in the era of the Spanish Inquisition, the authorities in Barcelona and Valencia branded card games and gambling the devil's work and tried to ban them.
But the demon was already out and interest spread rapidly, particularly with the rise of the privileged and moneyed classes. King Charles VI of France, who died in 1422, commissioned sets of cards from a court painter, Jaquemin Gringonneur. Tarot cards, which have been known in Italy from the 15th century, were also hand-painted by prominent Italian artists, including Bonifacio Benbo.
The advent of woodblock printing from the 15th and 16th centuries, and later lithography and photo-mechanical reproduction, hugely increased their spread. Even Napoleon Bonaparte commissioned playing card designs.
Early cards were larger than today's, many being about 20cm long. They were also quite thin and designed to be viewed only one way up.
The cards we know today - smaller, round-cornered, thick, opaque - are largely a 19th-century trend. The 19th century also ushered in the era of whist and its successor, bridge, and cards that can be read either way up.
The 390 lots offered at the Muir sale ranged from single cards to complete packs.
Top price was $2,310, including buyer's premium, for a fine 1829 Thomas Creswick card set, including pearl counters and two packs of cards in near mint condition, all housed in a kingwood-lined flame mahogany box.
Among the earliest offerings was a part pack (56 out of 96) of Minchiati tarot cards from Poverone, Italy, circa 1650, with figures on one side and the Poverone crest on the backs. The cards, which are woodblock-printed and hand-stencilled, went for $2,090.
"Odd and curious" cards scored well too, with a deck of Sutherland's circular "Coon" cards manufactured in Mississippi (where else?) in about 1910 fetching $1,980. The cards were largely unsold when they were first produced after proving a drawcard for cheats. Melbourne sports store Hartley Bros bought them as a job lot and gave them away as a promotion. Despite the local connection, the Coon cards went to an overseas buyer.
Turn-of-the-century Australian cards sold strongly, with a rare northern Tasmanian souvenir deck dating from about 1900 featuring fauna and places of interest fetching $715. A different Tasmanian deck by W.R. Rolph of Launceston, circa 1910, brought a surprise $660 - four times its lower estimate.
One of the few major lots to go to a bidder in the room was a Tiffany & Co New York harle-quin "transformation" deck dating from around 1879 which brought $1,870. On transformation cards, the "pips" are built into the overall image, rather than being displayed alone.
Also sold at $1,870, but to an overseas bidder, was a deck of American Playing Card Co transparent playing cards circa 1860 which, when held up to the light, reveal erotic scenes.
Because card games and fortune telling have been with us so long, the field offers an impressive diversity. You can collect cards by era, for instance, Victorian times or the Roaring '20s, or by subject matter, for example, scen-ery, historical events, voluptuous ladies. Satirical cards and advertising cards offer rich fields for collectors. Some collect single cards just for the patterns; others collect transformation cards.
There's even big variety in the names of the printers, which range from Britain's Waddingtons and Thomas De La Rue, American Playing Card, to Australia's Spicers and Detmold and Sands-McDougall.
Some of these names live on today in the world of parlour games, and one - Nintendo Playing Card of Tokyo - has made the transformation into the world of electronic games.
* UPCOMING AUCTIONS
Wemyss: AMP collection of nautical collectables ... September 17.
Phillips: garden furniture, statuary, Vaucluse House ... September 21.
Sotheby's: jewellery, clocks, objects of virtue ... September 28.
Lawsons: antique furniture and decorative arts ... October 13.
Sotheby's: tribal and Aboriginal art ... October 28.
Lawsons: 20th century design ... November 4.
Lawsons: tribal art, rugs, textiles ... November 10.
* AUCTION RESULTS
Sir William Dobell, The Irish Youth, $266,500, Sotheby's.
Sir Bertram Mackennal, Circe (bronze), $85,000, Sotheby's.
Emanuel Phillips Fox, The Waiter, $96,000, Sotheby's.
Sir Sidney Nolan, Dust Storm over Darwin, $87,750, Sotheby's.
Arthur Boyd, House at Rosebud, $11,212, Sotheby's.
Charles Blackman, Bouquet 1959, $39,100, Sotheby's.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald
