Playing Politics 2010
“Playing Politics ’10: With no expenses spared” featuring caricatures by Oliver Preston, published by InterCol London, UK.
This is the 5th pack produced by InterCol London in the Political Playing Card Series. Earlier packs covered the elections of 1983, 1987, 1992 and 1997. This pack was commissioned by Sir James Tidmarsh to commemorate the 2010 election and the colourful caricatures on the aces, court cards and the three jokers are by Oliver Preston. Labour politicians are portrayed on the spades; Conservatives on the hearts; Liberal Democrats on the diamonds; and media personalities on the clubs. See the box►
Above: “Playing Politics ’10: With no expenses spared” playing cards with caricatures by Oliver Preston, published by InterCol London, UK, 2010.
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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