Collecting Old Crooked Gambling Catalogs!

 

For complete DOWNLOADS of these Gambling Catalogs...Go to: http://www.acnovelty.info

Hello!...

As I have always contended, collecting old catalogs is a hobby for anyone and everyone! …You're bound to find a category that you can collect whatever your interests may be...from fishing to gambling!

Gambling???......That opens up a very interesting little niche that I want to talk about today...Not just gambling , but crooked gambling!

More specifically, what I am talking about here are catalogs, often called "Blue Books" that were issued by crooked gambling supply houses.  They actually advertised all sorts of crooked and gaffed items from loaded dice to marked cards in catalogs with pictures.

They sometimes, but not always, covered this by offering other items like fishing tackle and sporting goods in the same catalog.

The 2 biggest and most famous crooked gambling supply houses were:

H.C. EVANS & CO. and the K.C. CARD CO.

(both were located in Chicago, Illinois.)

H. C. Evans & Company of Chicago, established in 1892, was a leading manufacturer/distributor/ & retailer of casino equipment and supplies...both honest and crooked.  And, in addition to casino equipment and supplies, the company also manufactured and sold trade stimulators, pocket novelties, amusement park supplies, fair ground games and shooting galleries. They prospered during the 20's,30's and 40's, but went out of business in 1955 being succeeded by Evans Park & Carnival Device Corporation.

OK...let's get to the interesting part:

As early as 1909, their catalog, which purportedly sold sporting goods, fishing tackle and novelties contained, in reality, and for the most part crooked gambling items like marked cards and loaded dice. (once again, they attempted to diguise this fact by relegating the first few and last few pages of their catalogs to sporting goods and fishing tackle.)

From about 1914 the firm published a catalog known as "The Secret Blue Book", which included details of crooked casino equipment supplied by the firm. After 1929 the catalogue was temporarily discontinued because in their words: "during the past several years this book has been copied and infringed upon by numerous unscrupulous individuals".

The 1929 catalog ( and previous catalogs) offered  "special dice", "special prepared cards", and "electro magnets" amongst scores of other crooked gimmicks.

"Special dice", white or transparent "filled dice" or "shaped percentage dice" were offered and also items said to be proprietary to the firm: "tapping dice", "gravitation dice", "new idea crap dice" and "novelty dice...of course, these were all crooked gambling gimmicks.

H.C. Evans also claimed to have been leaders in the manufacture of "special prepared cards" ("marked cards")(also known and advertised by their underworld name "paper") since the end of the 19th Century...These  cards even included "luminous readers" which could only be read by using specially manufactured "ruby ray" glasses and visors  to read their backs.

The firm's "Giant Electro Magnet" was promoted as "the latest development in electromagnetism for the control of dice". It was available as a separate component or incorporated in a regulation 32 inch card table, and used with transparent "electric dice".

That's just some of the stuff. There were "shiners", "daubs", "hold-out devices", "trimmed decks" and a lot of other stuff advertised also.

To give you an idea of what was offered, I've reproduced some pages from various catalogs from the turn of the century to 1942 (their heyday).

CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO GREATLY ENLARGE!

Here are some pages from the 1909 H.C. Evans & Co. catalog!

                                                            

"PAPER" IS THE UNDERWORLD TERM USED FOR MARKED CARDS...SEE PAGE BELOW:

ABOVE PAGE ADVERTISES SPORTING GOODS ON PAGE 3 TO COVER FOR INSIDE GAMBLING PAGES!

By the way, you can get a complete scan of the entire 64 page H.C. Evans 1909 catalog at this URL for FREE!:

http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/Evans%201909-1910%20Catalog/

                                            _________________________

Here are some scans of their 1942 catalog   CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO GREATLY ENLARGE!

                               H.C. EVANS & CO. BLUE BOOK 1942

                                    

                        

                     

                        

Ok!...As I mentioned before the other crooked gambling supply house was the K.C. Card Co. of Chicago….

It was established in Chicago in 1918 and became well-known to buyers of this kind of merchandise quite quickly…This company issued straight out Blue Books and never attempted to hide the fact as did H.C Evans….It was still operating after the demise of H.C. Evans in 1955 and continued to operate into the early 60’s.

Numerous Blue Books were issued  until 1961 which marked the last published Blue Book by this company.  Curiously enough, this last Blue Book was issued, but never distributed to it’s customers…The last Blue Book that was issued and distributed was released in 1960. It was really one of their best. The inside pages are 2 color and overall it’s probably the best one they ever offered.

Some pages from this and other K.C. CARD CO. Blue Books are reproduced below.

K.C. CARD CO. BLUE BOOK #434  (1948)

      CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO GREATLY ENLARGE!

               

                   

                

                  

                  

                

K.C. CARD CO. BLUE BOOK 1960...77 PAGES

               

   

          

           

      CLICK ON ANY PHOTO TO GREATLY ENLARGE!

     

         

        

          

I

COMPLETE DOWNLOADS OF ALL OF THE CROOKED GAMBLING SUPPLY CATALOGS MENTIONED ABOVE ARE AVAILABLE HERE: http://www.acnovelty.info