Hmm. Perhaps "badly repaired" would have been a more accurate way of putting it.
Anyway, this deck has a Stuart Time pattern (which is unusual), and is patience-card size (48mm x 74mm). The indices on the cards are tiny — 2mm — and there's no joker. Such packs were produced 1902-1905 (a joker was added 1906 and the indices also grew to 3.5mm). It's therefore quite uncommon, if not exactly rare.
Oh, and someone has written a name inside the flap on the box: Jean Griffin. Quite why Jean thought that repairing ripped cards by sticking them to an old postcard was the way to go, I don't know, but I suppose they couldn't be played with any more whatever she did.
Maybe I'll use them to experiment with ways of cleaning up up Dondorf playing cards without damaging them.