Introducing Exquisite! From Expert Playing Card Company.

Old or New? Yes!

A few years ago when we started to get the itch to create modern versions of decks from the golden age of playing cards (1860-1920) our first stop was at the great temple for all things related to playing card collecting, Tom and Judy Dawson’s place in Toronto.

Among a number of really cool and rare decks offered to us was this amazing deck called Exquisite. The Dawson’s told us that this deck from about 1895 or so and produced by the Union Playing Card Company of New York was, as far as they knew, a one of kind. No other example had ever turned up anywhere.

The sideways tuck was love at first sight!

The back design that Union used wasn’t as much fun so we decided to replace it with a really beautiful back that had also originally come from the Art Nouveau period.

What we have now is the result of that day with Tom and Judy (and many many other great days with them!), Asi Wind’s great eye in picking out the back design and Lawrence Sullivan’s help in getting the factory that made the Legends (a true instant classic) to make our sideways tuck.