As well as stealing designs from Flying Heart Millinery, Romantically Bent, Sheldon Pewter, J&A Handmade, and MacGregor Games.
This is just a list of companies that you believe Samson Historical may have ripped off. This is not proof. First, J&A Handmade makes modern beaded jewelry (
https://jandahandmadejewelry.com/). I had not heard of them until this post. I found them with a quick google search. Samson Historical does not sell jewelry at all. I cannot speak to any other issues with Flying Heart Millinery, Romantically Bent, or Sheldon Pewter, but I can show definitively that the cards MacGregor Games sells (
https://historicgames.com/xcart/period_playing_cards/#pageId=1) and the cards that Samson Historical are printing themselves are not exactly the same. (
https://www.samsonhistorical.com/pages/search-results-page?q=cards)
I am an avid card collector, and have purchased decks from both companies. MacGregor Games has one deck of 18th century cards, while Samson Historical offers two different decks. All three are of completely different origins, as can be seen in the photos below. The Samson Historical deck is based on a deck from Bamford in 1750, while the MacGregor Games deck is a facsimilie (copy) of a deck printed in London ca. 1750, from an unknown printer. According to their information, the only indication of who the printer was are is initials "HC" on the king of hearts. When looking at the actual cards, shown in the photos below, I can tell that they are based off the same deck, by the initials on the king of hearts; however, I can also tell that the two companies did their own research, as well as their own photo editing and printing. The quality of the two decks are not the same, as far as the printing. Additionally, the colors are not exactly the same, nor did Samsons simply slap the same graphics into a deck of cards. This can be seen by the distinct blue line around all of the face cards from MacGregor Games, which is not present on any of the cards from Samson Historical. There are also many small differences on all of the face cards, for instance, the King of spades has a white space on either side of the black robe on the Samson deck that is not present on the MacGregor deck. The same space can be seen between the red and yellow down the side of the King's leg on the Samson Deck and not on the MacGregor deck. Or the King of hearts, which has a white line between the red and white blocks in the lower left corner of the card on the Samson deck, which is not present on the MacGregor deck. This Samson card also shows extra lines inside the white sash on the Samson deck, a red outline around the kings hands and hair, and a gap between the red and blue of his robes, all of which are not present on the MacGregor deck. I have included photos of the two decks separately and side by side.
With a few minutes of research in my playing cards history books and google, I turned up the source for the images for both decks. It's not rocket science. Those images have been included as well, to show the differences on the original files.
I also turned up this fun tidbit of research. From:
Playing Cards: The History and Secrets of the Pack by W. Gurney Benham (Spring Books, London), pg. 31 "The english cards (c.1750), placed side by side with the French cards of c. 1567, are a complete set of Court Cards reproduced from a pack issued by Bamford of London, about 1750 or a little later. The blocks were probably of an earlier date. 'H.C.,' on the sword of the King of Hearts, may be the initials of an earlier card-maker whose business had been taken over by Bamford. The name Bamford is not mentioned in the minutes of the London Company of Makers of Playing Cards, nor is there mention of any maker with the initials H.C."
Perhaps, as has been shown with the playing cards, Samsons have discovered the same extant pieces of clothing (as Flying Heart Millinery and Romantically Bent both sell clothing and accessories) to base their clothing line off of. Or maybe they simply purchased patterns that were commercially available and used them to design their clothing line. As simple as this seems, the overall goal of historical reenacting should be interpreting history as closely as possible. And that this is only possible if we acknowledge that not every single item or garment from the 18th century is still available. This makes it so that every reenactor creates their personas, garments, and accouterments based off of a few extant pieces, paintings, and writings from the time. It is extremely possible that if we are using the same sources and references that we end up with the same or similar items to sell. And this isn't a bad thing. We should be recreating the commonalities, rather than the unique items, especially if we want to accurately portray every day life in the 18th century.
