Looking for Help Identifying Cards (1 Viewer)

[ShuffleUpandDeal]

Hello all!
Hoping some better minds than mine may be able to help me out here. I’ve been trying to identify these cards seen in one of my favorite TV shows. Don’t have a lot to go on, can’t visually see a brand, and they were stored in a chip case, not a box.

Hoping someone here may be able to shed a little light for me. Thanks!

-Dylan

 

[Bikshu]

That's a pretty cool looking Ace of Spades, but unfortunately I don't recognize it. Out of curiosity, what TV show was it featured in?

 

[NotRealNameNoSir]

Yeah my bet is cheap paper cards but we'll see, good luck

 

[Bikshu]

Yeah my bet is cheap paper cards but we'll see, good luck

That would be my guess as well, just because of the full-bleed back. I think Gemaco was the only major producer of full-bleed plastic cards in the US market, but that sure doesn't look like one of their aces. And a search of PCF suggests that Copag, Modiano, & Trefl may have released some full-bleed plastic cards in the past as well... but this doesn't look like the ace from any of them either. So that would just leave paper cards.

 

[Jerome100]

I hate to recommend Google..... but there is a phone app, I think its just "google" or maybe "google lens". You can use that phone app to take a photo of something and then have it do a photo lookup.

I'd probably suggest using that app to take a picture of the photos you posted.

I've used it once or twice to identify a particular chair or light fixture I saw on TV and liked.

EDIT: Heck, I'll do it for ya! Ha. Didn't get any exact match. Some with similar shapes but didn't have that wheel in the middle.

 

[ShuffleUpandDeal]

I hate to recommend Google..... but there is a phone app, I think its just "google" or maybe "google lens". You can use that phone app to take a photo of something and then have it do a photo lookup.

I'd probably suggest using that app to take a picture of the photos you posted.

I've used it once or twice to identify a particular chair or light fixture I saw on TV and liked.

EDIT: Heck, I'll do it for ya! Ha. Didn't get any exact match. Some with similar shapes but didn't have that wheel in the middle.

Hey there! I’ve unfortunately spent a lot of time trying to narrow this one down on the Google app too, with image search as well- like you, I’ve had no luck. But thank you for the recommendation!

 

[ShuffleUpandDeal]

That's a pretty cool looking Ace of Spades, but unfortunately I don't recognize it. Out of curiosity, what TV show was it featured in?

Hey there! This was from a show called “Supernatural”. The character using them was a “900 year old witch”, and both the case and the chips were from the first half of the 1900s, so I originally thought they would be too. Beside the Ace of Spades, everything else looks like your standard card, so I’m thinking maybe that may not be the case…

Can I ask what a “full-bleed” card is?

 

[GeeOhVee]

Full bleed is when the pattern on the back of the card goes all the way to the edge, with no white border.

 

[ShuffleUpandDeal]

Full bleed is when the pattern on the back of the card goes all the way to the edge, with no white border.

Awesome, thank you!!

 

[GeeOhVee]

Interestingly enough, I think the consensus is that people hate full bleed, while I like them a lot! Copag had some export full bleeds that were great, and I have some poker width Binion's Kems that are full bleed that I absolutely love.

 

[ShuffleUpandDeal]

Interestingly enough, I think the consensus is that people hate full bleed, while I like them a lot! Copag had some export full bleeds that were great, and I have some poker width Binion's Kems that are full bleed that I absolutely love.

I’ve never really thought about it- is there a reason people like or dislike them? Is it because the pattern on the back isn’t consistent due to cut offs?

 

[Bikshu]

I hate to recommend Google..... but there is a phone app, I think its just "google" or maybe "google lens". You can use that phone app to take a photo of something and then have it do a photo lookup.

I'd probably suggest using that app to take a picture of the photos you posted.

I've used it once or twice to identify a particular chair or light fixture I saw on TV and liked.

EDIT: Heck, I'll do it for ya! Ha. Didn't get any exact match. Some with similar shapes but didn't have that wheel in the middle.

Yeah I tried Google Lens last night too, plus a couple of other reverse image searches as well. Unfortunately, just like what you ran into, none of them came up with any really useful results. I totally forgot to mention that I even tried doing this in my posts yesterday.

 

[Bikshu]

Hey there! This was from a show called “Supernatural”. The character using them was a “900 year old witch”, and both the case and the chips were from the first half of the 1900s, so I originally thought they would be too. Beside the Ace of Spades, everything else looks like your standard card, so I’m thinking maybe that may not be the case…

Can I ask what a “full-bleed” card is?

You gave a great description because just searching for "Supernatural 900 year old witch" immediately turned up results confirming that it was a character named Patrick. Then a quick glance at the show's wiki told me Patrick specifically appeared in Supernatural S05E07 entitled "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester." And although I've never actually watched Supernatural myself, I do happen to own an insanely large personal digital media library which includes the complete series... so it was easy enough to pull up that exact episode and skim through it looking for more clues. Below are some of the best screen shots I managed to grab.

The chips are clearly "Paranoid Inlaid" Crest & Seal chips. A quick search here on PCF confirms these were 39.6875mm chips mass produced by the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) from 1907-1947 and then by Burt Co. for a time into the 1950s. And it was very common, especially in the years before WWII, for these chips to have generic religious and/or ethnic logos on them such as a cross, Star of David, 4-leaf clover, horseshoe, swastika, Fleur-de-Lis, or in your case a star & crescent. There's usually a good amount of chips like these available for sale on eBay at any given time, although it might take a few purchases in order to build up a large playable set.

Unfortunately, I'm sorry to say that the chips were far easier to identify than those cards. I still do think the cards are paper stock rather than plastic, especially when you look at how warped and faded certain cards appeared to be in various scenes. Next I tried comparing a 39mm poker chip's width against the width of a that was bridge sized and another poker sized (just like we see in the 3rd picture below). That comparison made me pretty confident that your cards are poker size with a standard index. So we can be fairly confident that they are poker sized paper cards with a standard index and a full-bleed back, but that's about as much as I can tell you. Even multiple Google Lens searches on the best screen grabs I could manage didn't yield any great matches. I think that "carbon fiber" type pattern on the back is just so common on products these days that Google has a hard time matching it to anything exact. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!

 

[Geremie]

The ace of spades definitely has a GYT vibe to it. Not sure if it’s an exact match but the design features are close

 

[ShuffleUpandDeal]

You gave a great description because just searching for "Supernatural 900 year old witch" immediately turned up results confirming that it was a character named Patrick. Then a quick glance at the show's wiki told me Patrick specifically appeared in Supernatural S05E07 entitled "The Curious Case of Dean Winchester." And although I've never actually watched Supernatural myself, I do happen to own an insanely large personal digital media library which includes the complete series... so it was easy enough to pull up that exact episode and skim through it looking for more clues. Below are some of the best screen shots I managed to grab.

The chips are clearly "Paranoid Inlaid" Crest & Seal chips. A quick search here on PCF confirms these were 39.6875mm chips mass produced by the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) from 1907-1947 and then by Burt Co. for a time into the 1950s. And it was very common, especially in the years before WWII, for these chips to have generic religious and/or ethnic logos on them such as a cross, Star of David, 4-leaf clover, horseshoe, swastika, Fleur-de-Lis, or in your case a star & crescent. There's usually a good amount of chips like these available for sale on eBay at any given time, although it might take a few purchases in order to build up a large playable set.

Unfortunately, I'm sorry to say that the chips were far easier to identify than those cards. I still do think the cards are paper stock rather than plastic, especially when you look at how warped and faded certain cards appeared to be in various scenes. Next I tried comparing a 39mm poker chip's width against the width of a that was bridge sized and another poker sized (just like we see in the 3rd picture below). That comparison made me pretty confident that your cards are poker size with a standard index. So we can be fairly confident that they are poker sized paper cards with a standard index and a full-bleed back, but that's about as much as I can tell you. Even multiple Google Lens searches on the best screen grabs I could manage didn't yield any great matches. I think that "carbon fiber" type pattern on the back is just so common on products these days that Google has a hard time matching it to anything exact. Sorry I couldn't be of more help!


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… you are AWESOME. Thank you for the extra screenshots! I have several chips on the way, and already have the chip holder and a couple chips myself. The cards are the last piece of the collection puzzle for me. Once I figure these out I can officially start on the 007 Casino Royale collection lol.

I admire your research skills and eye for detail!

 

[Bikshu]

I’ve never really thought about it- is there a reason people like or dislike them? Is it because the pattern on the back isn’t consistent due to cut offs?

I have asked that very same question myself in the past, and unfortunately I didn't get many great answers. A couple of people cited the fact that a number of years ago Phil Ivey was able to cheat at multiple casinos with full-bleed (i.e. "borderless") cards using a method called "Edge Sorting". But most people said they weren't afraid of cheaters at all, and instead they simply preferred the aesthetic of having a white border around the back of the cards. So I think the whole border vs. borderless debate is just another one of those playing card characteristics where every single person has their own set of preferences, kind of like poker size vs. bridge size, standard index vs. jumbo index, textured vs. smooth, soft vs. snappy, etc. Unfortunately, however, for whatever reason full-bleed cards have become harder and harder to find over the years... especially when it comes to the plastic playing cards that poker games typically use.

In any event, good luck with your Supernatural and Casino Royale projects!

 

[ShuffleUpandDeal]

I have asked that very same question myself in the past, and unfortunately I didn't get many great answers. A couple of people cited the fact that a number of years ago Phil Ivey was able to cheat at multiple casinos with full-bleed (i.e. "borderless") cards using a method called "Edge Sorting". But most people said they weren't afraid of cheaters at all, and instead they simply preferred the aesthetic of having a white border around the back of the cards. So I think the whole border vs. borderless debate is just another one of those playing card characteristics where every single person has their own set of preferences, kind of like poker size vs. bridge size, standard index vs. jumbo index, textured vs. smooth, soft vs. snappy, etc. Unfortunately, however, for whatever reason full-bleed cards have become harder and harder to find over the years... especially when it comes to the plastic playing cards that poker games typically use.

In any event, good luck with your Supernatural and Casino Royale projects!

Thank you very much for the info! I appreciate it greatly!