Mas Reynals (Suministros Jimasa) - Baraja Española "Colección"

8/13/2026

Mas Reynals (Suministros Jimasa) - Baraja Española "Colección" - Ref. 1205

INTRODUCTION

This entry marks the start of our review of the Colección [Collection] series by Barcelona-based card producer Suministros Jimasa (formerly Mas Reynals). It's a small line, consisting of an interesting pair of decks, as they are actually "sleeper reissues" of early 20th-century packs by Juan Roura—which we have previously examined—brought to market without any fanfare.

IDENTIFICATION DETAILS

True to its typical branding chaos, the manufacturer once again overlaps designations. The tuck box bears the Suministros Jimasa name, while some cards retain the original Mas Reynals stamp, and finally leaving Varitemas out of the equation. As previously mentioned, this deck is part of the Colección line, Ref. 1205 and titled simply Baraja Española [Spanish Playing Cards].

ARTWORK & PRINTING

This is a Spanish-suited deck featuring the Castilian pattern with the exact same artwork seen in Juan Roura’s La Hispano Americana Nº 21, and we could easily leave it at that. However, it offers a unique opportunity to make a side-by-side comparison between a modern reproduction and a nearly century-old pack.

I was pleasantly surprised by Suministros Jimasa’s execution. The linework and colors have been rendered so faithfully to the original that it's hard to tell them apart at a glance. The only noticeable differences are the removal of the original text in favor of new inscriptions referencing the current manufacturer.

The card back and joker designs have likewise been kept intact. On the latter, we can still see the original illustration from Roura’s La Hispano Americana brand—a pair of planets framed by columns—as well as the inscription “Fundada”, where the original 1872 date was simply swapped for 1985, the year Mas Reynals was founded.

Examining both decks under magnification reveals some fascinating details. What immediately stands out is the complete absence of a halftone grid—the familiar printing 'rosettes'—in the Roura original, which are clearly visible in the Jimasa version, giving away the use of modern offset printing technique in the latter.

Furthermore, it's worth noting that although the vintage deck features solid and even hues, a subtle pigment buildup occurs along the contours and chromatic transition zones, being most conspicuous along the green and yellow boundaries. This phenomenon, faintly echoing the coffee ring effect, suggests that the process used in Roura's pack was chromolithography rather than an early offset method.

Most striking, however, is that these minute microscopic artifacts were reproduced in the modern deck as well. Although partially masked by the offset halftone dotting, they stand out clearly upon direct comparison of both packs.

LEFT: Suministros Jimasa - RIGHT: Juan Roura

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LEFT: Suministros Jimasa - RIGHT: Juan Roura

Click to view Full Resolution

LEFT: Suministros Jimasa - RIGHT: Juan Roura

Click to view Full Resolution

MANUFACTURING QUIRKS & DETAILS

Up to this point, we have noted Suministros Jimasa’s remarkable execution, pointing to a high-resolution scanning and digitization process paired with seamless digital transfer prior to printing. Nonetheless, it's not entirely without its flaws.

Upon reaching the eights and nines, however, this meticulous work falls apart, at least partially. My original Roura pack has 40 cards, and I was unable to locate any 50-card version. It seems to me that the design team hit the same snag and chose to cheat in order to pad the deck out.

The clue that tipped me off—and led me to inspect these cards with greater scrutiny—was a glaring oversight: they forgot to include the pintas [border breaks]. On the eights and nines of cups, swords, and batons, the frame line remains unbroken as in the coins suit—a mistake someone unacquainted with Spanish playing card conventions would make.

This led me to take a closer look under magnification, and I concluded that they used other cards—mainly the original fives and sevens—to digitally "create" the eights and nines. The imperfections from the vintage handcrafted printing repeat identically, at the pixel level, on these cards, being especially obvious in the suit of batons. This suggests that Roura’s original pips were cloned, rearranged, and slightly resized to produce the missing cards.

This was a rather unfortunate decision: if they were unable to source an original 50-card deck to reproduce faithfully, simply releasing a 40-card pack would have sufficed. No one would have faulted them, and they would have delivered a flawless reproduction of a historical deck—on par with any reissue by Fournier or other renowned makers.

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