Periodic Table playing cards
Periodic Table playing cards produced by Synheme Inc., Canada, c. 2006-2007.
A double deck produced by Synheme Inc., Canada, c. 2006-2007. SynHeme's mission “is to create fun and educational decks of playing cards”. Each card presents one element of the Periodic Table:
- Atomic number
- Element name in English, French and Spanish
- Atomic mass
- Natural state
- Chemical series
- Melting and boiling points
- Period and group
- Some common uses
Over the two decks all 118 elements presented. The 4 Jokers have more than one element per card.
By Peter Burnett
Member since July 27, 2022
I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.
Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.
Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.
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