Jost Ammon historic cards (16th Century German)

I had picked some up long ago because they reminded me of the Vacchetta and other beautiful cards, almost as the Victorian Transformation decks and the Milanese decks in the 19th century filled with costume, opera and comic satire of their days.. the 1820.Gumppenberg's Tarocchi, Trade Sites of Milan in the 1800s was already pulling from at least two or three centuries of card games and illustrations in German history.

The video is from a small publishing house on historic games...I do not have this set, but the video is pretty nice--it's on the Jost Ammon cards:

http://www.youtube.com/user/macgames#p/a

The deck:
http://historicgames.com/RPcards.html

Jost Ammon decks mentioned elsewhere:

http://www.wopc.co.uk/art/index.html

http://www.wopc.co.uk/germany/ammon.html

Google books has a good small description of historic Jost Ammon designs:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ci...#v=onepage&q=jost ammon playing cards&f=false

and Ammon's cards "Book of Trades" commentary is referenced elsewhere. In the Penny Magazine of 1883, Jost Ammon's illustrations are mentioned in context of wood-carving and printing methods used historically.

http://english.cla.umn.edu/PM/PMII.101.html

Getty Museum quick biography:
http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=980

Hope that helps in some historic searches on the heritage of the cards. The example of the alternative to the Jack in German card games is interesting to note as well.

Cerulean

Thanks for this information and links Cerulean, these are interesting cards especially seeing the 10 replaced by Queen. I can see the similarities in style to the Vacchetta.