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Death Card - Viet Nam


gunbarrel
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Is it my imagination, or is the one on the side of the GI's helmet oversize?

 

Or is it just a distortion in the photograph?

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  • 4 weeks later...
willysproject

Hi,

 

The 'original' Bicycle "Secret Weapon" Ace of Spades cards were Bicycle 'rider back' poker cards, type 808, and decked in the "Secret Weapon" boxes. Of course Bicycle also produced other sizes of commercial playing cards. I believe this card is a type 86, Bridge card. Bridge cards are a bit larger than poker cards.

 

Nice pic as it proves that different types Ace of spades were used occasionally. (Not only 'Bicycle' spades, but also 'Bee', etc...)

 

The other photo is great is well... I should have been the highest bidder on that one 3 weeks ago .... :-p ;-)

 

Kind regards,

Gerd V

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willysproject

Hi,

 

Just a small edit to the above post.... 'Bridge' cards are smaller in size than poler cards... So it won' be a bridge card. Bicycle does make more varieties in size than just these 2. So it will be another type of card.

 

Kind regards,

Gerd V

 

 

Hi,

 

The 'original' Bicycle "Secret Weapon" Ace of Spades cards were Bicycle 'rider back' poker cards, type 808, and decked in the "Secret Weapon" boxes. Of course Bicycle also produced other sizes of commercial playing cards. I believe this card is a type 86, Bridge card. Bridge cards are a bit larger than poker cards.

 

Nice pic as it proves that different types Ace of spades were used occasionally. (Not only 'Bicycle' spades, but also 'Bee', etc...)

 

The other photo is great is well... I should have been the highest bidder on that one 3 weeks ago .... :-p ;-)

 

Kind regards,

Gerd V

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  • 7 months later...
kriegsmodell

This photo appears to have been enhanced or modified at some point ....? Border edging lines around the helmet and the playing card? Or perhaps it's just me .....

 

 

post-70-1250763833.jpg
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This photo appears to have been enhanced or modified at some point ....? Border edging lines around the helmet and the playing card? Or perhaps it's just me .....

Yeah, looks like a bad photo shop deal to me also. The very first picture looks more like a reenactor than a period taken photo... but, maybe that's just me too.

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I have a series of WWII books by the VFW and there are lots of examples of this kind of enhancement. Usually the picture is not edited but outlines are enhanced to make the subject stand out more. That's what this looks like to me, but that's humble opinion.

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From what I have seen, this was often done on photos meant for publishing in newspapers and magazines. For newspapers especially the print processes were not as refined as they are today. Without such enhancements the details would fade into a gray or white blurr.

 

Also note that the same outline does not go around the entire profile of the soldier, only the helmet and the death card. Looking at his lower torso and his rifle, the photo looks much more natural.

 

Even with modern photo shopping, this would be a tough photo to fake due to the variety of textures and shading. I think this one is real.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Though these cards are not Vietnam era and are Desert Shield era they are probably the same type. This deck is a regular sized deck of cards that are all Aces of Spades. The guy I bought them off of said that they were ordered by someone in the Army but was told that they could not use them as "Death Cards". I cannot verify the truth to this, only passing it on. Anyways here is a picture of one of the decks that I bought.

 

post-7263-1252181320.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

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