I have been watching a few Facebook chip collector groups for awhile. I keep a look out for card back designs I don't know as well as decks from Aruba I don't own. Recently, a new member of the group posted a deck made by Fournier, a Spanish card manufacturer, from the Casinos du Quebec, which I hadn't seen before. First, Fournier casino decks are not numerous. Second, I wanted the deck to include the back design in my guide. So, I arranged to make a trade for a deck (he had been a dealer at the casino and had a few). The deck also has a few other interesting features that make it a desirable deck to me.

Being a casino in Quebec, the face cards are in French and have French designations. The King has an R for Roi, which translates to King. The Queen has a D for Dame, which translates to Lady. The Jack has a V for Valet. I have non-casino cards from different countries with different letters, but it's always fun to get a new deck with other face card letters.

Next, it turns out the deck is 100% plastic, which is a finer style of deck. Although I will probably never use them to play cards, plastic decks don't crease easily and typically cost more (they use them in poker rooms because players have to look at their cards without people sitting right up against them seeing what they are, so players shield their hand and bend just the tips of the cards to see them).

Finally, the decks say the word, "FORMATION" on them:

Formation, in French, translates to "Training". This deck was a deck given to the original owner, the guy I was trading with, to train him to be a dealer. These decks were labeled as training decks so they would not be confused with standard Casinos du Quebec decks.

I have nothing like this deck in my collection, so I was thrilled to trade a few chips and a deck of my own for it. I thought some of you might be interested in it as well.

Michael Siskin