Fourteen circa 1910s-1960s catalogs from two well-known gambling and gaming supply companies, each approximately 40-70 pp., profusely illustrated. Octavos (most approximately 8 1/4 x 5 3/8 inches, slight variations in size). Original wrappers, held in two black clamshell boxes from Ken Klosterman's Salon de Magie, gold-stamped titles to covers and spines. Some light toning and handling wear throughout, one H.C. Evans Emergency Reprint catalog with more significant chipping and toning, overall very good. Chicago, circa 1918-1961. H.C Evans & Co. and the K.C. Card Co. of Chicago were both legendary businesses that sold both crooked and straight gambling equipment. H.c. Evans was established in 1892 in Chicago, and by 1929 claimed to be the oldest and largest firm of its kind in existence, with a 52,000 square foot office and factory space. Along with gambling and casino supplies, they also manufactured and sold trade stimulators, pocket novelties, amusement park supplies, pinball games, fairground games, and shooting galleries. They launched their first jukebox in 1948. The firm's president and CEO, Dick Hood, died in 1953, and less than two years later the firm had closed.
First established in Kansas City, the K.C. Card Co. moved to Chicago around 1940 after purchasing the Mason & Co. gambling supply house, forming one of the largest crooked gambling equipment supply outfits in the United States. After being raided by the FBI in 1961, they continued a small business in a different Chicago location until 1995.
This collection includes fourteen total items from the two gaming supply companies:
- Eight K.C. Card Co. "Blue Book" catalogs: Nos. 431, 432, 435, 560, 41st Anniversary (1959), 1960, 1961, and an undated/unnumbered catalog
- H.C. Evans "The Secret Blue Book", 1936
- Two H.C. Evans "Emergency Catalog Reprints", circa 1948-1950
- H.C. Evans & Co. Catalogue 1918-1919
- "Club, Park and Carnival Equipment" catalog from the Evans Park & Carnival Device Corporation, "successors to H.C. Evans & Co.", circa 1960s
- "Catalog No. 52 of Automatic Mechanical Shooting Galleries for Indoor and Outdoor Rifle and Pistol Practice", H.C. Evans & Co.
These catalogs, profusely illustrated throughout, sold a variety of crooked gambling supplies alongside legitimate gambling equipment, supplies more commonly used for magic tricks, shooting games, and other indoor and outdoor gaming supplies. The information page in the K.C. Card Co. catalog #431 reads, "This is the most complete catalog of its kind ever published. In these pages you will find many new and original money-making ideas. Our practical knowledge and information concerning the varied angles of this business is at your disposal. Our dice and card work sets the quality standard attempted by others."
The variety of products sold within these catalogs includes regular and trick dice, marked cards, trick cards to be used with special glasses, blockout ink, three shell games, two-way glass, ring concealers, bill shiners, fake money, dice boxes, game boards, keno equipment, bingo cages, manuals on horse racing and cocktail-making, and magic tricks, among other items. These items would allow the purchaser to make their own magic tricks or to fully outfit their own illegal gambling parlor.
These ephemeral catalogs are very scarce institutionally. As of June 2026, OCLC found only three North American libraries with any holdings of K.C. Card Co. catalogs, three holdings of an H.C. Evans "Secret Blue Book", and a single holding of an "Emergency Catalog Reprint
