United States Playing Card Company brand of cards, introduced in 1885. The typical Bicycle deck is a standard deck of cards consisting of 52 traditional French-suited playing cards, two jokers, an information card, and a card describing poker ranks. As with most decks, the first standard card of the deck is the uniquely stylized ace of spades. The Bicycle trademark is usually also printed on the ace of spades. The type number of a Bicycle deck can be found both on the bottom of the deck box and on the stone of the joker artwork. Bicycle cards have a textured 'air cushion' finish for improved
Transformation playing card should be considered a transformation deck, due to these differences. The Dean and Son deck remained the only deck to manipuate the pips until the 1970s, when the practice gained some popularity. Today, cards that do not strictly adhere to standard pip placement, size and color are referred to as semi-transformation playing cards. An article entitled "Playing Card Squiggles." was published in the December 1910 issue of "Strand Magazine". Several "Cotta" cards were pictured, erroneously attributed to an unnamed French artist. "Strand" subsequently asked its readers to submit their own designs for card squiggles, which the magazine periodically published. John