Playing Cards
PLAYING CARDS The first session of this sale is comprised in large part of the playing card and ephemera collection of Bob and Rhonda Hawes, of Hamden, Conn. The couple met in 1976, married two years later, and have jointly pursued their shared love of cards and card games ever since. Their introduction to collecting came in the early 1980s through Robert Kissel, a bridge- playing friend and student at Yale studying old European card games. Robert taught them gameplay of Tarock and Skat, and in 1986 encouraged the Haweses to attend their first playing card conference, held in nearby New Haven by the International Playing Card Society. Reluctantly, the Haweses agreed to go. The rest, so they say, is history. At the IPCS conference the Haweses met Gene Hochman, an authority on early American playing cards and author of The Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards. Through conversations with him, they were inspired to form a private collection and dedicated themselves to ferreting out 1 top material along the flea market and antique show circuits. They collected widely in books, advertising, postcards, trade cards, stamps, bridge tallies, and more, but eventually narrowed their focus to more specialized areas, most notably non-standard artistic decks, and particularly transformation decks. After more than two decades of active collecting, and following retirement from their previous careers, the couple decided to auction the material as they prepare for the next phase in life, including travel, new hobbies, and volunteer work. Of course, this phase will go on to include attendance at several annual playing card conferences, regular get- togethers with the many friends they’ve made along the way – and lots of games of cards.
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