Objects

One of two decks of playing cards as a memento of Henry Rozental's service in the Royal Air Force. The deck contains the standard 52 cards (in the colours of clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades), which have been placed in a cardboard box. When Henry Rozental started his service in the air force he was only 19 years old. The playing cards that pilots used to play in the evenings or while waiting for their flights. The boxes for storing the deck are decorated with the dignified, one would like to say, lettering of the brand and manufacturer's name. Its typeface and the very geometric arrangement of the words refer to the art déco tradition. One card was glued to the other side of the boxes - with the reverses facing outwards (most probably these are the second jockers missing from the decks; the card with the blue reverse was attached to the blue box, the red card to the red box). The reverses of the deck show the RAF pilots' symbol: a three-letter formation abbreviation in a laurel wreath (symbolising victory), with eagle wings on the sides (the eagle was one of the RAF emblems), and a crown above the tailpiece. The drawings on the card obverses, on the other hand, were not related to the "RAF" character of the deck series: the figures (jacks, queens and kings) and jockeys, as well as the numbered card designs, were standard images, as in most of the company's series. MF