On-line offsite data backup
On-line offsite data backup publicity playing cards produced by The Bunker, United Kingdom, c. 2004.
This pack was produced by The Bunker, a cloud and managed service provider, which hosts and backs up mission-critical data for companies and institutions in ultra-secure, and nuclear bomb-proof former military establishments used by the UK Ministry of Defence and the US air force, as command and control centres during the Cold War. The company has centres in Kent and Berkshire, England and the pack was probably produced shortly after the founding of the company in 2004, as the box offers a six-week free introductory trial, and refers to a 2004 survey of business security.
While the pip cards are standard, the court cards and aces offer information and advice on data security and backup. Unfortunately, the same information is repeated on each suit. There is an additional bridge score card with the name “richardedward” at the base – presumably a reference to Richard Edward Ltd., a publishing company dissolved in 2016.


Above: On-line offsite data backup publicity playing cards produced by The Bunker, United Kingdom, c. 2004.

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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