Old Playing Cards

I have a deck of playing cards that have to be over 50 years old. Exactly how old I do not know. They are in a brown cardboard box with Southern Pacific Lines on one side of the box and picture of a 6 of Clubs on the other side. The 6 of Clubs has a picture of Campanile, University of California, Berkeley in the center.

If you have any idea how old the playing cards are, please let me know.

Here's a message I received from Ed Branley about the cards:

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From: Edward J. Branley, elendil@yatcom.com
To: Butch Bridges
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 1996
Re: Vieux Carre Playing Card

As to the date of the deck, that's one of the big Daylight engines on the front from the 1930s. The photos all appear to be sights you can see at various points in the Southern Pacific system. New Orleans is there because it was the terminus for the Sunset Limited, which ran from Los Angeles to New Orleans. Amtrak has since expanded the Sunset Limited's line to go from New Orleans all the way to Miami as well.

Edward J. Branley
New Orleans, LA

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Inside are 52 cards with different scenic scenes and historical places from California, Nevada and Arizone area mostly. The following are some examples of the cards and their pictures.

On one side of each playing card is a color picture of the Southern Pacific Lines "Daylight" passenger train traveling down the track.

As an example, here are three cards with three scenes:

1. The Mission San Xavier in Tucson, Arizona
2. Campanile, University of California, Berkeley
3. Palisade Canyon, Nevada (with a train in the background)

Here are six cards with their respective pictures as listed below.

1. The Vieux Carre, New Orleans
2. Giant Cactus, Apache Trail Arizona
3. Chinatown, San Francisco
4. Serra Nevada Mountains (with train in background)
5. Wawona, Mariposa Grove, California, (shows two horsemen standing in the "cut-through" in the giant tree)
6. Yosemite Falls, California

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Last modified July 12, 1996