Netter playing cards
Anatomical playing cards published by Elsevier, USA, 2017.
Frank Henry Netter (1906 - 1991) was an American surgeon and medical illustrator. He published his Atlas of Human Anatomy in 1989 and was a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine. Netter produced nearly 4,000 illustrations, which have been included in numerous publications. See the box►
This pack, published by Elsevier in 2017, displays images from the Atlas – a total of 14 in all (13 repeated on each suit and the 14th on the Jokers). They include the iconic Netter skull on the Jokers and the superficial vessels of the face on the Jacks. The Kings show a photo of Dr Netter himself, while the image on the three of each suit is by Netter successor, Dr Carlos Machado.
Above: Netter anatomical playing cards published by Elsevier, USA, 2017.
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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