Wall Street Most Wanted
“Wall Street Most Wanted” playing cards, USA, 2003.
This pack of 55 cards (includes 2 jokers and 1 hero card) was produced by Parody Productions, Cincinnati, Ohio in 2003. Based on the claim that corporate corruption, executive excess and conflicts of interest seem to be everywhere to the detriment of investors, these cards highlight the most outrageous examples of this behaviour and depict high profile executives and business leaders who took advantage of the system and were labelled “villains” of American capitalism during the dot-com bubble era.
While the individuals lampooned on the cards and the wry comments beneath may have resonated at the time, the majority of names have long faded from public memory. The "hero" card depicts Eliot Spitzer, the "Sheriff of Wall Street".
Above: Wall Street Most Wanted playing cards produced by Parody Productions, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2003.
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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