Vintage Find: Playing Cards

I'm a huge fan of old playing cards and when I found these at the last Palm Springs Vintage Market, I knew they were coming home with me. After looking closer, I realized that I had to share them.

The maker was  pretty famous in the card making game. George C. Matteson, founded Gemaco Playing Cards in 1965. Upon earning a BS in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business in 1950, he returned to the Kansas City area where he entered the family business and created the Gemaco® brand (the name was derived from the first two letters in his first and last name, along with Company). The Gemaco® playing card brand was initially introduced to the promotional products industry in 1965 and then later to the casino industry in 1982.
At the same time Gemaco began, so did Lab Safety Supply (I wonder if these cards were some of George's first promotional creations). Lab Safety Supply Inc (no longer in business) marketed safety and industrial supplies in North America. The Company offered safety supplies, material handling, facilities maintenance, lab supplies and equipment, public safety, janitorial, tools, signs, labels and tapes. And it seems, playing cards to keep everyone entertained and safe!
There is just something about the simple messages, the two colors of ink, and the cartoony people that I just love.
The messages varied greatly. I wonder who came up with 52 different safety lessons for this pack of cards.

Some seemed very directed towards me!
Others made me laugh. Have you ever tried explaining a three-legged race to a 7 year old. What a concept. Funny stuff.
This one was just sweet.
Okay, this one made us grimace as Steve and I both recall an accident we read in the news, years ago, in which this happened. The headline read, Rare Surgery Reattaches Woman’s Scalp Torn By Industrial Blender [May 6, 1994]. "Doctors combined microsurgery and leeches to reattach the skin and hair of a woman who was scalped from her eyelids to the back of her neck by an industrial blender. The accident at a packaging company threatened to leave 30-year-old Patsy Bogle disfigured. But doctors who performed the rare operation said Friday she would recover with few or no visible signs of her injury." We have never forgotten that story and it was the first time I had ever looked at leeches in a positive light. Yikes. Funny what memories a vintage playing card can evoke!
Oh, and this one I can definitely attest to! Delights are truly found in the most interesting of places and in the most unique of objects.

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2 comments:

Mark said...

Great find !!

April 18, 2023 at 10:45 PM
Anonymous said...

fun find!

April 19, 2023 at 6:00 AM

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