Bicycle Playing Cards

Bicycle Playing Cards is a brand of playing cards. Since 1885, the Bicycle brand has been manufactured by the United States Printing Company, which, in 1894, became the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC), now based in Erlanger, Kentucky. "Bicycle" is a trademark of that company. The name Bicycle was chosen to reflect the popularity of the bicycle at the end of the 19th century.[1][2]

Current Bicycle playing cards: Ace of spades, joker, and the "Rider Back" in red

Design

Bicycle is a 54-card deck of red and black colored cards with two jokers, also known as a French deck. The Bicycle trademark is printed on the ace of spades. The current deck comes with two information cards, and two jokers.

Bicycle playing cards are sold in a variety of designs, the most popular being the Rider Back design. They are available with standard indexes in poker size (3.5 by 2.5 inches (8.9 cm × 6.4 cm)), bridge size (3.5 by 2.25 inches (8.9 cm × 5.7 cm)), and pinochle decks, "Jumbo Index" poker decks and Lo Vision cards that are designed for the visually impaired. Other types of cards with varying backs, colors and custom designs are produced for magic tricks and as novelty and collectors' items.

Significance in American wars

Toward the end of the first World War, the United States Playing Card Company produced four "War Series" decks under the Bicycle brand to represent each of the branches of the U.S. armed services: Flying Ace for the Air Force, Dreadnaught for the Navy, Invincible (aka Conquerer) for the Marine Corp, and Big Gun for the Army. The decks were printed in 1917, and apparently only given an extremely limited release before being withdrawn from circulation. It is unknown why the decks were not circulated, but one theory is that they were intended to be distributed to the troops overseas, and USPCC destroyed their inventory of the War Decks when Armistice was declared in 1918. Only a handful of these decks exist today.[3]

The 1917 War Series Decks (backs)
The 1917 War Series Decks (fronts)

During World War II, cards were produced that, when submerged in water, could be peeled apart and both halves had a map on the inside. When all the cards were put together it made a large map. These were supplied to POWs so if they escaped they would have a map. One deck is located in the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC and there may be one other in a private collection. Modern reproductions have been sold in limited editions.[4]

The company provided crates of Ace of Spades cards for U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War. It was erroneously believed that the Viet Cong believed the Ace of Spades to be a symbol of death and would flee at the sight of the card. In actuality, the Ace initially meant nothing to the Viet Cong, but the belief that the enemy was afraid of the cards improved the U.S. soldiers' morale.[5]

The origin of the cards is attributed to a letter written by a Lt. Charles W. Brown in early 1966 to Allison F. Stanley, the President of the United States Playing Card Company. Brown had read remarks from Congressman Craig Hosmer of California that the Viet Cong held superstitions of bad luck with pictures of women and the Ace of Spades. The Bicycle Ace of Spaces featured an image of the Goddess of Liberty combined with the spade. Upon conferring with other lieutenants, Brown asked for 1000 Aces for his company to use as calling cards for his company to leave for the enemy to see. Stanley was sympathetic to the soldiers and pulled cards from the production line to send free of charge. The story was reported by several news outlets including the Stars and Stripes where the myth was distributed throughout the military and more units requested cards. The symbol was eventually included in the official psychological warfare operations, and thousands of special all aces decks were donated by the card company to soldiers that purposely scattered them throughout the jungle and villages during raids.[5]

Similar cards were produced during the Gulf War in 1991, immediately prior to the invasion of Iraq by US forces.[6] Due to the short duration of the conflict, these cards never saw battle.[5]

References
  1. Dawson, Tom; Dawson, Judy (2014). The Hochman Encyclopedia of American Playing Cards - Part 1 (2nd ed.). New York: Conjuring Arts Research Center. p. 492.
  2. Knapp, Jim. Vintage Back Designs of Bicycle Playing Cards. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
  3. Pierson, Joseph. "Bicycle Playing Cards for Collectors". BicycleCards.org. Wordpress. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  4. "A map inside the cards". Bicyclecards.com. Archived from the original on 2014-08-02. Retrieved 2014-10-31.
  5. Herbert A. Friedman. "The Death Card". psywarrior.com. Archived from the original on 2014-07-15. Retrieved 2014-10-31.
  6. "Playing Cards As Weapons of War". 16 April, 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
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