02 September 2010

A collection and catalogue of rare playing cards




The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University maintains the Cary Collection of Playing Cards.
The Cary Collection contains well over 1,000 complete or partial packs of standard playing cards... The Collection contains standard cards from 16 European countries and 6 countries in the Western Hemisphere, as well as nonstan­dard cards from 23 European and 3 Western Hemisphere countries, and its content represents over 500 years of cardmaking...

Among the unique items in the Cary Collection's nonstandard materials are four c.1500 French wood blocks and fifteenth-century tarots of the Este and Visconti families. Well-known rarities include cards designed in Nürnberg by Hans Leon­hard Schäufelein (c.1535), Virgil Solis (c.1544), and Jost Amman (1588); G. H. Bleich's pack engraved on silver (c.1690)...
The essay on the playing card collection then explains the difference between "standard" cards for conventional games and nonstandard cards for other purposes. It then explains the suit systems -
There are sixteen standard suit systems represented in this catalogue. Four have acquired popularly accepted names which refer to the language or peoples of the geographical area of the suit systems' original usage: French (Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs); German (Hearts, Bells, Acorns, Leaves); Latin (Swords, Ba­tons, Coins, Cups); and Swiss (Shields, Bells, Acorns, Flowers).
(Embedded at the top of this post are examples of the King and ten of Swords, the Eight of Cups and the Nine of Coins).  The "nonstandard" cards are grouped into "Adver­tisement, Cartomancy, Educational, Game, Historical, Humorous, Original de­sign, and Souvenir."

I have not found at the library website a simple gallery of images. Individual cards can be seen via this database, and the entire collection is explained in this essay.

1 comment:

  1. we played with the 'german' suit system of cards in the czech republic. was quite confusing when you're used to the 'french' suits.

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