As in chip collecting Barry ... there is no right way or wrong way to collect playing cards. Some folks only collect one particular card out of the deck, such as the Ace of Spades or Queen of Hearts. Others, such as myself collect entire decks. Some collect only original sealed decks that have not been cancelled. Some only collect decks from certain locations such as Las Vegas, others collect every deck they can get their hands on.

As for the color boxes... sometimes one can get mislead with the boxes. Occassionally, decks will get mixed up and may be inserted into a different box than what they originally were packaged in. I myself have put a deck of cards that I purchased at a flea market that had no box but simply had a rubber band around it ... and put it into an empty box when I got back home.

While the card back designs may look similar among various card manufacturers ... they are different ... just like chips that look alike but have different molds from different manufacturers. A card with a diamond back from Paulson will have a distinctly different style diamond than a diamond back from Gemaco or Bee.

With new reference books being written on this subject such as the one just released by Janice O'Neal and Sandi Steffner during the convention ... I suspect that more interest will be generated by collectors in another fascinating casino collectibles area ... playing card collecting.