Mom speaks:

Decks of playing cards usually contain 52 cards and one or two Jokers. Swap playing cards, on the other hand, are not decks of playing cards but rather single playing cards taken from a deck of cards.

I do not collect decks of playing cards. The reason that they are called swap playing cards is because those of us who collect single playing cards trade or swap our duplicate single cards with other collectors around the world. I currently trade or swap single playing cards with approximately 25 other collectors monthly. That is how I accumulated so many wonderful -- thousands and thousands -- of different single playing cards.

Decks of cards can be split -- broken up -- to make 52 swap playing cards if you have 52 people to send them to and trade for other cards. Which is what I do -- I buy decks of cards at yard sales, etc., split them up, and then send them out to my trading buddies. I list the extras as single swap playing cards in my eBay Store.

Generally, we trade according to our likes/dislikes. For example, I have some traders who only collect animal -- dog, cat, horse playing cards -- so I wait until I have 25 such cards -- we trade 25 cards at a time -- to send them and they wait until they have 25 similar cards to send me. Or, I have other traders who only collect vintage advertising cards so I wait until I have 25 such cards to send them. With 25 regular traders, it does not take me long to gather the types of cards my traders want -- remember I have been collecting for more than 12 years and have oodles of cards to sort through so I can usually put together the kind of trade my traders want. Beside I keep getting new cards from other traders and recycle the ones I have duplicates of. Plus, I have friends who go to yard sales, etc. and send me cards all the time as gifts -- generally, because they are dog lovers and have fallen in love with my Bashful Boy -- I kid you not, he has made more friends for me than I have made myself!

Bashful speaks: Woof! (It's true. I'm irresistible.)

I started collecting single swap playing cards as a child in the 1950s but got distracted by boys as a teenager. Like many people, nostalgia returned me to the wonderful hobby of collecting playing cards in the early 1990s and I have been actively collecting them ever since.

My collection numbers in the hundreds of thousands of single collectible playing cards and I have them organized into notebooks according to the following categories: dogs, cats, horses, birds, other animals, scenes, famous paintings, people, pinnups, railroads, ships, other transportation, vintage ads, soda, art deco as my main categories. Some categories, like dogs, cats, horses, and people have several notebooks of cards devoted to them.

Examples of the cards I have in my collection are available for viewing in my eBay Store -- Vintage Playing Cards and Old Books. This is such a wonderful hobby that any one of any age who lives anywhere in the world can participate in and I encourage all interested individuals to contact me for additional information about this great hobby.

I also love books and reading and enjoying selling books in my eBay Store and on Amazon.com. Feel free to browse my eBay Store to view the wide variety of books I have for sale and feel free to ask me for help in searching for books that you want to read but cannot find. I will do whatever I can to help you locate that special book.