Michie Tavern Museum
Historic Michie Tavern Museum playing cards by Brown & Bigelow.
Historic Michie Tavern Museum
Playing cards manufactured by Brown & Bigelow, St Paul, Minnesota, USA.
Above: Brown & Bigelow's most common ace of spades and joker c.1945-1980s but the court card designs (left) were modernised in the 1960s. Images courtesy Matt Probert.
By Matt Probert
Member since March 02, 2012
I have adored playing cards since before I was seven years old, and was brought up on packs of Waddington's No 1. As a child I was fascinated by the pictures of the court cards.
Over the next fifty years I was seduced by the artwork in Piatnik's packs and became a collector of playing cards.
Seeking more information about various unidentified packs I discovered the World of Playing Cards website and became an enthusiastic contributor researching and documenting different packs of cards.
I describe my self as a playing card archaeologist, using detective work to identify and date obscure packs of cards discovered in old houses, flea markets and car boot sales.
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