What are Alpha Playing Cards?
The short answer is: Alpha Playing Cards are a simple deck of cards with the letters of the alphabet on them that you can play a plethora of games with. If you like to know more about Alpha Playing Cards
>CLICK HERE<
What is the Little Free Library Edition of Alpha Playing Cards?
A bit of a story here, but eventually I get to why I named
them the LFL Edition.
These are the original first-run decks of Alpha that have to be updated. The original decks came with the rules for one game plus the website info on where you could find the rules for more games for free, currently there are 15 different games. Unfortunately, about two years after the print run, I had to change the website domain, and the web info on the rules became invalid.
So I started updating the decks one case at a time as I needed them to sell. There are 128 decks per case. This requires removing the shrink wrap from each deck, opening the box, and removing the rules with the incorrect website info from each deck. Then place the new rules with the correct web info back inside the box, and shrink-wrapping the deck again. I continued to do this one case at a time, until 2010, when I placed Alpha on the Game
Crafter, a print-on-demand website. Now you can go to their
website TheGameCrafter.com, buy a deck, and they'll print you a new one (that has the correct web info with it) and mail it to you. It makes selling Alpha Playing Cards a lot easier.
Well here it is 13+ years later and I still have a small horde of the original decks that have not been updated and are taking up space in my home. Since I only need a few decks for myself, this leads to the question, "What to do with the rest of the decks?" The easiest thing to do would be to just toss them out ...but that seems a little wasteful and I like to think someone (or two) might like a deck ...especially if it's free.
I'm a big fan of LFLs and have been for years. I even built my own which opened in September 2022 (LFL#153875). Then a thought occurred to me, that most people who like word games and word puzzles, also like books. I still had a few updated decks left over from a case that I updated many years prior. So I placed a few of those decks in my own LFL, and my dog StellaLuna and I went and visited some of the many LFLs near me. She is also a big fan of LFLs and loves visiting them especially if she gets to sniff around and pose in front of it. After a week or so when I would check back, most of the decks would be gone. It didn't take long before what was left of that case to disappear.
If I wanted to keep giving free decks away I would have to update the rest of the decks (one case at a time). And if I was going to do that, I thought maybe I should update the rule sheet, to have several different types of games for all ages since I didn't know who was taking them. So, I added the rules for three different games, a letter recognition game, a simple word game, and a word solitaire game.
Since StellaLuna and I were (and still are) having such much fun visiting LFLs, dropping off some
books and some free decks of Alpha, I decided to call the updated decks the Little Free Library Edition.
Too many decks.
Means free decks for you
StellaLuna has seen my horde of Alpha Playing Cards and she doubts that we'll be able to visit that many LFLs in our lifetime, especially since we only visit LFLs when the book bin in the back of my car is full (About once a month or so). And it seems now that we have to drive farther and further away to find new ones, so she suggested that we mail some of the decks out to the stewards of LFLs that are
to far away to get to. I told her that it cost money to ship and that might cut into her cookie money, and she responded with “Maybe they will pay for the shipping."
So I checked into shipping through the US postal service and found they have a nice little box that fits 4 decks of Alpha and only costs
$9.55 to ship anywhere in the
US. So, if you are you are a fan of a little free library and are interested in getting 4 free decks of Alpha Playing Cards for
your favorite Little Free Library you can e-mail me at
questions@tjgames.com
In the mean time StellaLuna and I will
continue to look for new LFLs near us to visit and AlphaDeck.
(Which
is a lot easier with the App)
StellaLuna posing in front of
our Little Free Library/Free Little Art Gallery
LFL#153875
Pictures
from StellaLuna's adventures visiting other LFLs
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