Naipes Expo ’92
Naipes Expo ’92 souvenir playing cards manufactured by Naipes Comas, 1992.
The Seville Expo '92 was a universal exposition that took place between April and October, 1992, on La Isla de La Cartuja (Charterhouse Island), Seville, Spain. The theme for the expo was "The Age of Discovery", celebrating the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus reaching the Americas after launching from Seville. See the box►
In this souvenir pack the suit of coins is represented by the symbol of the Expo, a globe crossed by a net, the suit of cups is represented by a caravel (a light sailing ship of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries in Europe), the suit of swords is the Giralda, a symbol of Seville, and the suit of clubs is a bottle oven, a symbol of La Cartuja or Charterhouse ceramic factory that once stood in the grounds of the Carthusian Monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas on the Isla de La Cartuja.
The court cards represent different groups: coins - Medieval Castilians; caravel - inhabitants of the new world; Giralda - Muslims; bottle oven / cartuja – Monks. The jokers are the strange "Curro" mascot of the Exhibition. This has the shape of a big white bird with the legs of an elephant, whose long conical beak and crest had the colours of the rainbow. See more details►
Above: Naipes Expo ’92 manufactured by Naipes Comas, 1992.
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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