Advertising & Promotional

“It’s the real thing”

Until the 1980’s, Coca-Cola® only issued between two and four sets of cards a year. This deck is circa 1971 (though I found one source saying 1973), with the famous tagline, “it’s the real thing.”

This deck is new, still in its box and wrapped in plastic, and was acquired in a lot purchase at an antique store in Ridgecrest in April of 2016.

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Coca-Cola® Mini Deck

This deck of Coca-Cola® cards has the trademarked curve bottle with bottle caps on it. Stars and circles (or bubbles) float around the bottle. This mini deck is 1.75″ X 2.5″. This deck was printed by the United States Playing Card Company (USPPC). As best as I can find, this design dates to the early to mid 1990’s. This deck is unopened.

You can find standard size copies of this deck, printed by Bicycle® (a USPCC company) sold online, but other than a couple copies on eBay, or specialty shops, I found the most copies in France and Japan. I only found one seller on eBay selling the mini deck.  Read more »

The Optimist Covers Artwork from 1934

These are two decks of Campbell Soup playing cards printed in 1995. The artwork were used during the 1930’s in an advertisement and as covers for The Optimist, an in-house publication for Campbell Soup Co. These images were done by Jessie Willcox Smith, who know for capturing tender moments of children in her artwork.

These two decks have never been used. Little girl deck is still in plastic. The plastic on little boy deck cracked and came off. Read more »