Bicycle Negro League Baseball Museum

Published September 03, 2023 Updated September 03, 2023

Bicycle Negro League Baseball Museum souvenir playing cards, USA, 2012.

2012 USA United States Playing Card Co. Bicycle African-American Americana Sports

This pack of exclusive photos of championship baseball teams was printed under the Bicycle brand by the United States Playing Card Company in 2012 for the Negro League Baseball Museum. The Museum was founded in 1990 to preserve the rich history of African-American baseball and is located in Kansas City, Missouri. While the four aces present photographs of championship teams (the Chicago American Giants, Kansas City Monarchs, Homestead Grays, and the Pittsburgh Crawfords), the remaining cards simply show team logos or badges (some repeated on different cards). There are two jokers, an information card about the Museum, and an advertising card for Bicycle cards. See the box

Bicycle Negro League Baseball Museum souvenir playing cards made by the United States Playing Card Company, USA, 2012 Bicycle Negro League Baseball Museum souvenir playing cards made by the United States Playing Card Company, USA, 2012

Above: Bicycle Negro League Baseball Museum souvenir playing cards made by the United States Playing Card Company, USA, 2012.

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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.

Russian Playing Cards

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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