New York City souvenir
New York City souvenir playing cards with 53 different views of interest, USA, 1915.
Published by the United States Playing Card Company in 1915, this souvenir pack shows oval photos of the 53 principal views of interest. The background colour varies according to suit: spades have a pink background; diamonds – a green background; hearts – a blue background; and clubs – an orange background. There is one joker, portraying the Obelisk, and the card reverse shows the Statue of Liberty, surrounded by a white border. See the box►
Above: New York City souvenir playing cards published by the United States Playing Card Company, USA, 1915.
See: Hochman encyclopedia of American playing cards, p. 258, no. S37.
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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