When my dad was teaching me to play poker, he imparted one very clear piece of advice: Never play poker at a casino (if you’ve ever seen Rounders, you’ll understand why). To this day, I love playing poker, and other games like slap, hearts, gin rummy, and euchre have also found a warm place in my heart, to the point that good-quality playing cards have become a necessity in my life.
And there are plenty of great cards out there, but one thing many will find, once they start exploring the world of playing cards, is that novelty cards are almost universally terrible. Today, I’m happy to introduce a set that isn’t, because James Lamdin and our friends over at Analog:Shift have teamed up with Éditions de la Tour to produce a new set of playing cards, and they are absolutely worth a look.
Éditions de la Tour first came to my attention last year when they introduced their first deck of cards, a thematic deck with designs inspired by iconic steel sports watches like the Submariner or Royal Oak. Now, we have their follow-up, a deck whose designs draw inspiration from vintage watches of all sorts. But where last year’s release focused on four special designs repeated on the face cards, this year’s features 52 wholly unique designs, with each card showing an illustration of a different watch.
The watches featured follow no set theme and include everything from Doxas and Tudors to Cartiers and Pateks, with the 52-watch collection having been curated by Analog:Shift founder James Lamdin. Besides the decks themselves, 200 uncut sheets of playing cards will be available for those wanting to frame the collection, and the 12 original hand-drawn and painted watercolor court cards will also be available for purchase.
The cards themselves come in two versions: A green deck, with green card backs and a hobnail-textured box, and a red deck, whose cards are largely identical but come with a red back and are presented in a red alligator-scale-textured box. Each deck is priced at $25 USD.
Pricing & Availability
Price: $25
Availability: Available now through either Analog:Shift or Éditions de la Tour
Limited Edition: Yes, 500 decks.
For more, click here.