Harold Samuel Collection playing cards
The Harold Samuel Collection of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century artworks, United Kingdom, 2012.
The Harold Samuel Collection of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century artworks was assembled by Sir Harold Samuel (1912–1987). He bequeathed the collection to the City of London to hang at Mansion House. To coincide with the 25th anniversary of this bequest a printed guide and this pack of cards was published in 2012, by the Mansion House, City of London. Each card shows details from some of the 84 paintings in the collection. Two additional cards list the artists and give the guidebook entry number for reference. The card backs show the red and the blue carpets on the main stairs of the Mansion House. See the box►
Above: the Harold Samuel Collection playing cards printed by Carta Mundi for Mansion House, 2012.
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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