It dated to 1917 and we used that deck in two or three games. It had the Statue of Liberty on it and flags of some other countries. At that time I had never heard of that brand, but the box looked cool and the cards were in okay shape.

I don’t think the deck had ever been shuffled! I put it aside and went back to eBay and found a deck of cards made by Congress. I went on eBay and found this neat looking BP Grimaud deck that was from around the 1910s. In April 2011, I got the idea to try to find an 'old' deck of cards to use in these poker games. In 2008, I started a family and friends poker league that still goes on to this day, although we haven’t gotten together much at all since last year. How did you get involved in collecting playing cards, and for how long have you been doing this?Īround 2005, I started picking up a deck or two of cards at casinos around the state and we would use them in our family card games. I love playing poker, euchre, and other card games. I’ve worked in the telecommunications/technology installation field for nearly 25 years. I have an amazing 11 year old daughter and I’ve been with my wonderful fiancée for 7 years. The Interview General background For those who don't know anything about you, what can you tell us about yourself? So let's hand it over to Kevan, and see what we can learn from this passionate collector, and what he has to say about the topic of rare playing cards, and more. I'd corresponded with him before, and when I reached out to him to do this interview, he quickly and kindly agreed. And he loves talking about playing cards. Kevan focuses on collecting the Congress 606 brand, and has the goal of collecting one deck of each card back produced between 18. One name that kept popping up is The Congress Guy, aka Kevan Seaney. When you are active in playing card forums, you'll eventually discover the names of some regulars who have real expertise and experience in this area. It was time for me to admit that I was well outside my area of expertise, and to consult a more experienced playing card collector in order to get a more informed perspective on this.įortunately I didn't have to look far. Like many of my readers, I tend to focus mostly on collecting modern playing cards, and really don't know a lot about vintage and antique playing cards. People who have been collecting playing cards for a long time and have real experience in collecting vintage and antique decks are often better positioned to answer these questions. Many of us even lack the context and experience to answer them properly, other than having a vague sense that if a deck we want is hard to get hold of or costs a lot of money, we tend to think it is rare.

These are questions that collectors of modern deck can easily get confused about. Most of these lists simply have modern decks that fetch high prices or are hard to get hold of because of high demand.īut are those the factors that make a deck rare, and are we even using the term correctly? What factors exactly determine whether a deck of playing cards is genuinely rare: Is it the age of the deck? The going price? The number printed? The current availability?

For example, with a quick online search, it didn't take me long to find several lists of 'most rare playing cards'. What should we consider as 'rare' playing cards? What determines if a deck of playing cards is a 'rare' deck? The term is often used quite flippantly and casually by collectors.

Congress pinochle cards jug