Eclipse Comic playing cards (reproduction)

Published October 20, 2023 Updated October 21, 2023

Eclipse Comic playing cards is a reproduction of the first transformation pack printed in the USA in 1876 by F.H. Lowerre.

2020 USA F.H. Lowerre MPC (makeplayingcards.com) PlayingCardDecks.com Azured Ox Facsimiles & Replicas Kickstarter Transformation

This pack was funded via Kickstarter and is a reproduction of the first transformation pack printed in the USA in 1876 by F.H. Lowerre. It was also the first transformation pack to include a Joker.

The pack was recreated digitally from scratch by Azured Ox (with Columbia University providing high resolutions images from the original pack from the Albert Field playing card collection), printed by MPC in China, and produced by Will Roya of PlayingCardDecks.com in 2020. Like many Kickstarter packs two editions were created with different colours, blue and red, on the back and the tuck case, in a print run of 500 packs per colour. The box was completed with a replica tax stamp seal

According to Albert Field, Transformation playing cards, U.S. Games Systems, 1987: “The humor is at the comic strip level, and the pips are by no means always integrated into the design. Most of the face cards are caricatures”.

Eclipse Comic playing cards is a reproduction produced by Will Roya of the first transformation pack printed in the USA in 1876 Eclipse Comic playing cards is a reproduction produced by Will Roya of the first transformation pack printed in the USA in 1876 Eclipse Comic playing cards is a reproduction produced by Will Roya of the first transformation pack printed in the USA in 1876 Eclipse Comic playing cards is a reproduction produced by Will Roya of the first transformation pack printed in the USA in 1876

Above: Eclipse Comic playing cards is a reproduction produced by Will Roya of the first transformation pack printed in the USA in 1876. Printed by MPC in China.

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By Peter Burnett

Member since July 27, 2022

I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.

Russian Playing Cards

Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.

Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.

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