Cary-Yale Visconti Deck: which edition?

I would love to have a second or third pair of eyes to check my own perception.

I wonder if there are images of the Cary-Yale 1984 USG cards out there. Let me have a look around..... I will also try to find a way to share pics.

In the mean time, these are (if I understand the booklet correctly) the 22 missing cards:

The Fool
The Magician
The Popess
The Pope
Justice
The Hermit
The Wheel of Firtune
The Hanged Man
Temperance
The Devil
The Tower
The Star
The Moon
The Sun
Male knight of swords
Male page of swords
King of staves
Male knight of staves
Queen of cups
Female knight of cups
Male page of coins
Three of coins

I have finally figured out why Scapini only needed to replace 19:

The three virtues - charity, faith, and hope - stand in for Popess (High Priestess), Pope (Hierophant), and the Star respectively. I like that.

And indeed, the so called 'staves' are arrows, and the 'cups' are actually chalices. Very interesting.

I am still reading the booklet as I type this so more information to come I am sure

There should be images of the originals here:

http://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3432566

But I can't get them to load for some reason. I tried three different browsers. I remember viewing them several years ago but I don't know what the problem is now.

Happy Squirrel, I think what you must have is one of the last 1984 printings. 1984 is the copyright date but but I don't believe that's when it was printed because of the CT address. US Games moved from NY to CT in 1988, so yours has to be at least printing 2. Check inside the first page of your booklet and see if there's a string of numbers. The lowest one indicates the print run.

I don't know anything about the 1989 one other than that's the current publication date given at Amazon. I looked around for some scans but couldn't find any that were for sure from the 1989 version. US Games could've renewed the copyright without changing anything about the deck, or there could be substantial changes that required a new copyright, I just don't know.

There's a nice chart of extant, missing and replaced trumps for this deck compared alongside the Pierpont-Morgan and Brera Brambilla at Andy's Playing Cards.

(EDIT: By 'replaced', he's referring to cards attributed to another artist of the period, not to new replacements. But I still thought it might be of interest to see side by side.)

Abrac said:

Happy Squirrel, I think what you must have is one of the last 1984 printings. 1984 is the copyright date but but I don't believe that's when it was printed because of the CT address. US Games moved from NY to CT in 1988, so yours has to be at least printing 2. Check inside the first page of your booklet and see if there's a string of numbers. The lowest one indicates the print run.

I don't know anything about the 1989 one other than that's the current publication date given at Amazon. I looked around for some scans but couldn't find any that were for sure from the 1989 version. US Games could've renewed the copyright without changing anything about the deck, or there could be substantial changes that required a new copyright, I just don't know.

Click to expand...

Looks like you are right....

Looks like my deck might be one of the last of the 1984 copyrighted images (what year is the copyright only relevant to investigating if 'replacement' cards are done by same artist, since the other cards should be the same?), one of the last printed in Switzerland before they move printing to Belgium, and printed after 1988.

After this is presumably the 1989 copyright.

But Le Fanu's deck is second printing 1984 and printed in Belgium....? Unless second printing is done in both Switzerland and Belgium.....

Are these the numbers I should be looking at?

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

So when we were talking of 1984 in this thread, we are talking of FIRST PRINT 1984....?

Well, I am guessing that all images that are subjected to the same copyright will be the same. It is the card stock that will be hard to compare unless we have all editions to compare them side by side......

If we can assume that USG uses the same printer in each country, that is, one printer in Switzerland, and another in Belgium etc, and not shop around and used different printers in each country, then we can extrapolate card stock quality from *which country* they are printed.

Otherwise.... it is a bit of a crap shoot isn't it....

Rose Lalonde said:

There's a nice chart of extant, missing and replaced trumps for this deck compared alongside the Pierpont-Morgan and Brera Brambilla at Andy's Playing Cards.

(EDIT: By 'replaced', he's referring to cards attributed to another artist of the period, not to new replacements. But I still thought it might be of interest to see side by side.)

Click to expand...

Thanks Rose! I will need to spend a whole night with a cuppa reading this page I think!!

Hi Happy, yes 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 are the numbers.

When dating decks, the copyright is only one factor and not always the most meaningful. I'll use the Waite-Smith as an example. The copyright is 1971, but there have been many print runs. You might have a deck that was printed in 1979 but still have a 1971 copyright date. So for your Cary-Yale, 1984 is the copyright date but you still need other information to determine what printing it is. That's where the print numbers in the booklet come in handy, as well as the US Games address on the box.

Le Fanu said his/her deck was the second printing and printed in Belgium but doesn't give the address. Rose Lalonde said her husband's says 1984 and is the "first edition." By this I assume she means first printing but I don't know. She doesn't give an address either. It appears the Belgium printings came first then Switzerland but I'm not sure with the information at hand. The only reasons any of this matters is sometimes print runs can vary in quality.

I'm not sure there's a rhyme or reason to the Belgium/Switzerland issue, I mean as far as whether one came before the other or if decks were printed in both places simultaneously. When I get home I'll see if there's anything in Kaplan's Encyclopedia about it.

Hi, Abrac. The address on the front and top of his box is New York 10016. New York is on the front of the LWB as well. I assume it's the first printing, because the string of numbers says 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. The cards were printed in Belgium according to the top of the box. (The back of the box says CY86 (presumably referring to the 86 cards rather than a year, I'm guessing) and Box Printed in Switzerland. The LWB was printed in the USA.)

Ah, thanks a million Rose, that clears up a lot but opens another can of worms.

Happy, before you said yours was printed in Switzerland. Is that for the box or cards?

EDIT: Yes, CY86 stands for Cary-Yale and 86 cards.

Abrac said:

Ah, thanks a million Rose, that clears up a lot but opens another can of worms.

Click to expand...

Happy to make it more interesting.