Old Playing Cards Page
Old Playing Cards
I have a deck of playing cards that have to be over 50 years old. Exactly how old I do not know. They are in a brown cardboard box with Southern Pacific Lines on one side of the box and picture of a 6 of Clubs on the other side. The 6 of Clubs has a picture of Campanile, University of California, Berkeley in the center.
I found these cards after a printer named Mr Wilkinson closed his printing shop
next door to Hunts Grocery on 3rd NE back in the 1960s.
Below are 2 emails I've received about the playing cards:
From: Edward J. Branley, elendil@yatcom.com
To: Butch Bridges
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996
Re: Vieux Carre Playing CardAs to the date of the deck, that's one of the big Daylight engines on
the front from the 1930s. The photos all appear to be sights you can
see at various points in the Southern Pacific system. New Orleans is
there because it was the terminus for the Sunset Limited, which ran
from Los Angeles to New Orleans. Amtrak has since expanded the
Sunset Limited's line to go from New Orleans all the way to Miami as
well.
Edward J. Branley
New Orleans, LA
10/12/08 Hi, Butch! I just today stumbled into your 1996 posting of the
old Southern Pacific playing cards. Perhaps you have your questions all answered
by now. On the back of the cards is a Southern Pacific Northern GS-2 4-8-4
streamlined locomotive, pulling the distinctive red, orange, and black of the
Daylight that went between San Francisco and Los Angeles. It might be a GS-3,
which would be a little faster, but I suspect an advertising poster would use
the earlier GS-2. The GS-2 series were all built in 1937, and they inaugurated
that Daylight color-scheme. The GS-3 series were built in late 1937, although
according to some sources the last wasn't completed until early 1938. They were
all built by Lima Locomotive Works. The actual image is from an advertising
poster entitled "Southern Pacific Streamlined Daylight." An original is in the
California State Library. Here's a link:
http://helios.library.ca.gov/cahistory/2004/2003-0314.jpg
The GS-2 series was replaced by the more famous GS-4 class beginning in 1941, so
the cards would have to date from 1937-1941. I can't imagine Southern Pacific
issuing cards with a passe' locomotive on them. The most famous of the GS-4
class is SP 4449, restored to pull the Freedom Train for the 1976 Bicentennial
celebrations. This locomotive also has its own website:
http://www.sp4449.com/
John Sellen
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Inside are 52 cards with different scenic scenes and historical places
from California, Nevada and Arizona area mostly. The following are some
examples of the cards and their pictures.
On one side of each playing card is a color picture of the
Southern Pacific Lines "Daylight" passenger train traveling down the track.
As an example, here are three cards with three scenes:
1. The Mission San Xavier in Tucson, Arizona
2. Campanile, University of California, Berkeley
3. Palisade Canyon, Nevada (with a train in the background)
Here are six cards with their respective
pictures as listed below.
1. The Vieux Carre, New Orleans
2. Giant Cactus, Apache Trail Arizona
3. Chinatown, San Francisco
4. Serra Nevada Mountains (with train in background)
5. Wawona, Mariposa Grove, California, (shows two horsemen standing in the "cut-through" in the giant tree)
6. Yosemite Falls, California
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This webpage started July 12, 1996
