Éditions de la Tour has released Vintage Watches, a new deck of playing cards curated with James Lamdin, founder of Analog:Shift in New York. It's now available at Clicky Bezel for $25.
If you've picked up the Steel Watches deck at the shop, you already know the idea. Vintage Watches is the Paris publisher's follow-up, and it takes that idea further: every one of the 52 cards carries its own hand-drawn watch, with no repeats from the 2 of Clubs to the King of Spades.
A deck curated by a vintage specialist
Lamdin guided the selection of the timepieces, eras, patina and design details that made it into the deck. Éditions de la Tour's artists then drew each one in the house style. For anyone who has spent time with vintage watches, that curation is the interesting part. These cards reflect one person's view of which watches and design cues are worth studying, and that makes the deck fun to flip through slowly.
Two ways of drawing a watch
The illustrations come in two styles. The number cards use a blueprint treatment, with clean technical line drawings of each watch. The Jacks, Queens and Kings are full-colour illustrations that work the classic court-card figures into the watch designs.
Made to be played
These are regulation poker-size cards (63 × 88 mm), printed on 310 gsm linen-textured black core stock. The black layer at the centre of each card keeps it opaque, so nobody can read your hand through the back, and it helps the cards hold up over many games.
The packaging gets the same attention. The deck comes in a burgundy tuck box with an alligator texture, an embossed and varnished logo, and varnished details. Each copy then slips into a reptile-textured paper envelope finished with gold hot-foil stamping. Éditions de la Tour designed it to live two lives, as a deck you carry and play with or as a piece you keep on display.
Come take a look
We'll have Vintage Watches at the shop for $25, and it sits nicely next to the Steel Watches deck if you already own that one. It's a good gift for the watch person who seems to have everything. It's also a low-key way to share the hobby at game night with friends who don't know a Speedmaster from a sundial.
Disclosure: Clicky Bezel sells the Vintage Watches and Steel Watches decks.
