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Liberal Democrats Playing Cards

Published October 17, 2022 Updated October 28, 2022

Liberal Democrat MPs shown on playing cards at the time of the annual Party Conference in September 2003.

2003 United Kingdom Games & Print Services Political

This pack of 52 cards and 2 jokers features the Liberal Democrat members of Parliament at the time of the annual Party Conference in September 2003. It was produced in a limited edition of 1000 packs by the (then) Colchester MP Bob Russell to finance the installation of a toilet suite for disabled people at his constituency office and the Headquarters of Colchester Liberal Democrats. There is an extra card citing the preamble to the Federal Constitution of the Liberal Democrats.

Liberal Democrat members of Parliament, 2003 Liberal Democrat members of Parliament, 2003

Above: Liberal Democrat members of Parliament, printed by Games & Print Services, 2003. 52 cards + 2 jokers + extra card. Limited edition of 1000 packs.

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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.

Russian Playing Cards

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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