Flora playing cards
Flora playing cards made by the Angel Playing Card Co., Kyoto, 1982.
This attractive and colourful pack was made by the Angel Playing Card Co., Kyoto, in 1982. It features fantasy designs on the courts within an elongated hexagonal frame, the red suits against a green-blue floral background and the spades and clubs (in blue rather than black) against an orange-brown. autumnal backcloth. The aces and pip cards are standard with the exception of a special ace of spades, and the card reverse has a floral pattern on a grey background. The cards were published inside a plastic box inside a card box. See the box►
Above: Flora playing cards made by the Angel Playing Card Co., Kyoto, 1982.
See: Fournier Museum, Playing Cards pt.2, Japan no. 106.
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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