Joker Collection

Traditional jesters, troubadours and harlequins are displayed in the collection which continues with about 75 joker cards in the first five groups.

Begin the tour with acrobatic jokers or see the latest additions - jugglers and minstrels. Links for the other joker groups show the quantity of designs to be displayed.

   mouseover to see card back

From a facsimile edition of Canary Playing Cards made for poker, printed by The New York Consolidated Card Company of New York, NY.

The Best Bower card (above) is similar to the first joker ever printed, about 1870, for the game of Euchre. It took more than 400 years after cards first appeared in Europe before the two extra cards were included in a standard deck of playing cards. More information is available on the Playing Card FAQ about the origin of the joker.

Fool: also called jester, a comic entertainer whose madness or imbecility, real or pretended, made him a source of amusement and gave him license to abuse and poke fun at even the most exalted of his patrons." (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1995).

Playing card makers The joker card is registered as a trademark, which is an opportunity for the card publisher to add something unique to their deck of cards. The original artwork can go through many changes over the years; different cultures often add their own influence to the costume and scenery. Card makers also produce another unique card in the deck -- the ace of spades is traditionally used for taxation purposes. List of joker web sites More than 12 playing card joker collections are currently online. The list can be sorted alphabetically, by number of cards, etc. with a brief description. Collecting supplies Card collecting supplies - 9 pocket pages and trading card sleeves