US Playing Card Co-- "WhiteKnuckle" brand
poker-size decks • 52 cards, plus 2 jokers

WhiteKnuckle Playing Cards present a unique rendering of the English Pattern. The idea was not to abandon the standard playing card, but to carefully preserve it. Nothing needed to be added that wasn't already there. Everything had been assigned to its place long ago. Where ambiguity obscured the identity of certain instruments or other objects, reference was made to our ancestor, the French Rouen Design. In some elements, historical patrimony has given way to artistic licence, but in most you see the same familiar old characters, Kings, Queens and Jacks, embellished and enhanced. That was the idea. These were medieval characters, with crowns and iron swords. What treasures they held and blades they guilded would make fascinating subject matter in vivid expression and meticulous detail. Acclaimed Australian artist, Brett A. Jones, poured over this rendition for two years while it consumed him in an artistic morass from which he was truly grateful to have emerged.