CCCP playing cards
Soviet and other Communist celebrities depicted on every card, designed by Vladislav Pankevitch.
CCCP stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in Cyrillic script. On the box and on all the cards in this pack (except the extra Joker), all the text and names appear in both Cyrillic and Latin script. Despite what it says on the box, not all the celebrities depicted are Soviet: Mao Zedong, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have been included alongside Lenin, Brezhnev, Stalin, etc. The designs are double-ended except for the Aces and Jokers. The Piatnik name and/or logo appear on the Aces of Hearts and Spades. On the numeral cards, portraits of various celebrities in oval frames have been placed in two corners, with the pips rearranged to fit in the remaining space. On the backs, the hammer and sickle symbol (representing proletarian solidarity) appears in yellow in diagonal lines against a red background. Piatnik No. 1500. See the box►
Above: CCCP playing cards made by Piatnik, Vienna, Austria, 2000. 52 cards + 3 Jokers in tuck box. Size: 58 x 89 mm. © Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Sons.
By Roddy Somerville
Member since May 31, 2022
Roddy started collecting stamps on his 8th birthday. In 1977 he joined the newly formed playing-card department at Stanley Gibbons in London before setting up his own business in Edinburgh four years later. His collecting interests include playing cards, postcards, stamps (especially playing cards on stamps) and sugar wrappers. He is a Past President of the Scottish Philatelic Society, a former Chairman of the IPCS, a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards and Curator of the WCMPC’s collection of playing cards. He lives near Toulouse in France.
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