Liverpool Daily Post
“Mercury” playing cards produced for the Liverpool Cooperative Society, printed by the Liverpool Daily Post, c.1930
Above: detail from the Ace of Spades showing the rose, thistle and shamrock.
“Mercury” playing cards produced for the Liverpool Cooperative Society and printed by the Liverpool Daily Post, c.1930
The Liverpool Daily Post was a local newspaper in the 19th and 20th centuries. It amalgamated with the Liverpool Mercury in 1904. It clearly had the appropriate printing machinery for producing playing cards, which are on good quality card and with intricately designed courts in full colour. There seems to be only one pack, which was made for the Liverpool Cooperative Society, and was boxed as “Mercury” cards. This must be a reference to the former separate newspaper.
Above: “Mercury” playing cards produced for the Liverpool Cooperative Society printed by the Liverpool Daily Post, c.1930. 52 cards + Joker in plain box. There is no connection with CWS, Manchester, as far as is known. The Jack of Heart has swastikas in his clothing which at this time had no connotations with the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
REFERENCES & CREDITS
E.P.C.S., Newsletter: An Interesting Discovery, Vol.10 No.41 Aug'93 p.51
Lodge, Ken: The Standard English Pattern (second revised and enlarged edition), Bungay, Suffolk, 2010
Images and text kindly supplied by Ken Lodge.
By Simon Wintle
Member since February 01, 1996
Founder and editor of the World of Playing Cards since 1996. He is a former committee member of the IPCS and was graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal for many years. He has lived at various times in Chile, England and Wales and is currently living in Extremadura, Spain. Simon's first limited edition pack of playing cards was a replica of a seventeenth century traditional English pack, which he produced from woodblocks and stencils.
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