The Hampshire Patent Playing Cards

From the patents, an elegant minimalist set of French pattern playing cards:

Arrange by rank, to show the styles

In April of 1939, John Caldwell Hampshire (a subject of the King of Great Britain, residing in New York) was granted a patent for a New, Original, and Ornamental design for a Deck of Playing Cards.

They are an elegant design, with only the symbol in the centre of the card, and the rank marked by the index. Additionally, the Ace, Jack, Queen, and King had bars in the suit colours running down the sides of the cards, and the court cards had crowns, seemingly borrowed from Lewis Carroll.

We've realised the deck, and added a red and black fool card, with double lines in the colours to match the courts.

If you want to play 1939 minimalist cool poker, you can buy a set of the cards, printed-on-demand at Make Playing Cards, here.