mystery cards

[dazzleguts]

These showed up in a local house demolition. I have no information about the source and cannot find any reference to them on the web. They seem to be emulating Gemaco Gem backs and even have "Armour Finish" on the box like old Gemaco do. There was also a deck of used Gemaco cards with them.

On the jokers:
"Designed and Manufactured by THE WILKINSON PLAYING CARD CO. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada"

Everything I found seems to be samples. The complete deck of cards, plus extras, are single layers of paper with no backs and there are separate card back samples with no faces. All were kept in one of those old wax board photo albums, including the flattened boxes. I had to use a hair dryer to separate them from the pages.

On a card back "WILKINSON playing cards SPECIAL EDITION 1988" (see 3rd picture)

Any info, or even just educated guesses, would be appreciated. It's possible they never went into production, but if they did perhaps someone here has run into them before.

Wilkinson faces.jpg (130.01 KiB) Viewed 243 times

Wilkinson box.jpg (380.59 KiB) Viewed 243 times

Wilkinson backs.jpg (574.64 KiB) Viewed 243 times