Carte Osteologiche
Skulls and bones of all descriptions have become the suits and pips in this 40-card pack from Italy.
Osteology is the part of anatomy that deals with bones and the skeleton. This pack acts like an introductory handbook to the subject. Indeed, the extensive booklet explains (in Italian) every single bone, skull and skeleton represented in the pack.
The four suits are skull skeletons, axial skeletons, attachment belt skeletons, and appendicular skeletons. The only indices are on the court cards (K, Q, J); otherwise, one has to count the bones. The booklet also includes rules for a variant of the Italian game of scopa.
Above: Carte Osteologiche published by Edizioni Libreria dello Studente di Franco Lucisano, Milan, Italy, 1978. 40 cards + extensive explanatory booklet in Italian, in clear plastic box. Size: 64 x 90 mm.
• See the booklet►
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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