Recently, a job lot of 19 decks came up on eBay, so I put in a bid and won. The sets were described as "jokers" — basically a pot pourri that looked as if they'd come from some dead person's estate. Anyway, there wasn't much of a clue as to what they might contain so I got them fairly cheap. This morning, they arrived.
There were indeed some pretty unusual packs, including some non-standard decks particular to specific games (which I'll maybe blog about another time). There were also some very nice normal decks, none of which were antique but which I was very happy to find. Two sets, though, were completely unexpected. Here are the ace to five of hearts in each one (the rest are along the same lines):
Hmm. Well that wasn't what I was expecting (otherwise I wouldn't have opened them in front of my father-in law).
The first set looks to be from the 40s or early 50s judging by the hairstyles and what few clothes are present; the second set looks to be from the 60s, for similar reasons. It's interesting that in both packs the women in the clubs suit look to be the ones most up for having a good time; I'm not sure if this is by accident or design (like there's maybe a theory behind it). Surprisingly, some of the women in the 60s set have rather unattractive faces, although I don't suppose that the kind of person who would have bought such cards would have spent much time looking that high up the body.
I do actually already have an old set of glamour pose cards ("bikini cards") in my collection that I bought from a flea market in Singapore, but they're still factory sealed so I don't actually know what they look like. These ones that arrived today are not factory sealed, and seem to have seen some use. One or two of the 60s ones are creased, for example.
Oh well, at least I can be thankful that none of them were stuck together.