Amusements and Attractions
‘Amusements and Attractions’ playing cards showing the fun and excitement of America’s amusement parks.
Published in 2007 by Inkstone Design, Inc. of Missoula, Montana this attractive, gilt-edged pack shows the fun, excitement and style of America’s amusement parks, carnivals, roadside attractions, drive-in theatres, and natural wonders, recalling a lost golden era of American social history.
Each card displays a contemporary poster image of an attraction, its date of construction or opening, and a few words of description. The pack has two jokers, both depicting different images of the Fountain of Youth, St. Petersburg, Florida, while the card back displays the Illuminated Star built in 1949, Mill Mountain, Roanoke, Virginia. The pack comes with a leaflet in a purpose-designed flip-top metal box with fairground images on all sides. See the tin►



Above: ‘Amusements and Attractions’ playing cards published in 2007 by Inkstone Design, Inc. Made in China.

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.
Related Articles

Sannois dans les étoiles
Celebrities and buildings associated with Sannois, a commune in the suburbs of Paris.

Visite Mexico
Promoting Mexican tourism with 54 different photographs in full colour.

Get Decked
Black and white cartoons devised by Sam Wagner with help from artist Lindsay Bevington.

Baraja de Juan Martín Zamorano
Deck inspired by El Pendón de los Zamorano, a military pennant dating from 1501, published by Priego...

Beowulf
Jackson Robinson's Beowulf playing card deck inspired by the Old English pagan poem.

Keith Haring playing cards
Energetic graffiti images by the American artist Keith Haring.

The Tarot of Meditation – Yeager Tarot
Marty Yeager’s original Tarot of Meditation from 1975, republished later by U.S. Games Systems, Inc....

Adobe Deck
The first digitally-produced deck of cards.

Seminole Wars deck
Seminole Wars deck by J. Y. Humphreys, Philadelphia, c.1819.

The UCR Deck
Giant-size cards designed by Thomas Sanders to advertise courses and facilities at UCR.

Fredericks & Mae playing cards
A rainbow pack from the design team of Fredericks & Mae and Benjamin English.

The Glasgow Pack
Issued to celebrate Glasgow’s reign as European City of Culture in 1990, with city views and works o...

Baraja Turística del País Vasco
Basque poker deck of 55 cards published by Fournier with scenic views of the Basque Country.

Red Hat Society playing cards
Society that encourages women in their quest to get the most out of life.

Mountain Dream Tarot
Groundbreaking Tarot created by Bea Nettles, using photographs and photo montage.

English Heritage
52 different colour photos of historic sites managed by English Heritage.
Most Popular
Our top articles from the past 28 days