shakespeare deck:: This portrait deck designed by Donald Burton illustrates historical and dramatic characters in the History plays of William Shakespeare. The court cards represent different warring royal families during the infamous and tragic War of the Roses. The Spades and the Clubs are members of the York family (represented by the white rose) and the Hearts are the Lancasters (wearing a red rose). The Diamond court cards represent Tudor dynasty, which merged these two rival families when the Lancasterian Henry VII married the Yorkist heiress Elizabeth of York. The Tudor rose, a rose with white inner petals and red outer petals, is still used as the symbol of England today.

The jacks in this deck are all soldiers and relatives of the kings and their queens. The jack of Spades is George, Duke of Clarence, the brother to the Yorkist King Edward the Fourth, who was drowned in the famous "butt of Malmsey". The jack of Hearts is the Earl, later Duke, of Somerset, who was the head of the Lancasterian King Henry the Sixth's faction. The jack of Clubs is Sir William Catesby, the chief accomplice in villainy to the evil King Richard the Third. The jack of Diamonds is the Earl of Oxford, a staunch Lancasterian and supporter of the Tudor King Henry VII's claim to the throne.

The suits are interesting in that the merge the two suits of English/French with Spanish/Italian. Note how the Spade's sword is shaped, how the cup resembles a heart, the pointed, diamond-shaped coin and the club or mace-like club.
 

tudor rose deck:: While the deck is called Tudor Rose, it would be more accurate to say it portrays English national kings, queens and heroes from many different eras. The spades are indeed Tudor, with Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn as king and queen, and the jack of Spades as Sir Francis Drake, a famous explorer during the reign of their daughter, Elizabeth I. The hearts, however, are Victorian, with Prime Minister Disraeli as its Jack and the jack of Diamonds is Duke of Marlborough from the Hanover era. The clubs are a bit mixed up with Lord Nelson a the jack of Clubs, who battled Napoleon in a time much later than the Medieval King Richard the I or the Tudor Queen Elizabeth I.

While the jacks are often not associated with the kings and queens of their own suit, they are all, nevertheless, heroes of Great Britain.
 

grand dukes of tuscany deck:: This beautiful deck of Tuscan cards is a four-generation representation of the Dukes from that region from the 15th to 18th century. The clubs are from the early Renaissance period and the jack (fante) is Giovanni, one of the eleven children of Cosimo I who later became Cardinal. The jack of Hearts is Don Antonio during the period of Duke Francesco I. The jack of Spades is Lorenzo, a younger son of Ferdinando I de' Medici. The jack of Diamonds is the late Renaissance Mattio de' Medici during the period of Ferdinando II. The cards accurately portray both the historical people and the details of costuming of the period.
 

screen legends deck:: The Screen Legends deck has paintings and illustrations of fifty-five Hollywood icons from the silent era to the 1940s. This deck is representative of several modern decks which dispense with court card tradition altogether and use all the cards in the deck to have art images, portraits or patterns, making the court cards less special.

This deck is unique in that it has feminist appeal with the appearance of a woman on a jack card, Margaret Sullavan (Three Comrades; The Shining Hour; So Red the Rose) is the jack of Diamonds. The prolific and trend-setting Adolphe Menjou is the jack of Spades; romantic and dashing Errol Flynn (Captain Blood, Robin Hood) is the jack of Hearts; Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (The Mark of Zorro, The Three Musketeers) is the heroic jack of Clubs.

 

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