Transparency

Selected images from a set of transparent playing cards.
When held to a light source, an image with a proverb can be seen.

Unknown maker, but likely US, circa 1870.

See all cards here: beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/getSETS.asp?ITEM=2039620 

Hot Stuff

The key card for the game of: Robert le Diable: Jeu des Mariages. France, circa 1820.

Q&A

Simple question; complicated answer.
From an unidentified card game from France, circa 1860s.

Tart, Lobster, and Pickle Herring

Playing cards from a deck of “carving cards” printed by Joseph Moxon in London, circa 1680.

The Deplorable Deck of Clifford

A deck of etched, printed, hand-colored playing cards created by the artist Nicholas Kahn while a student at Washington University in St. Louis. Missouri.

The Story of Hextor, Clifford, Duncan, and Serge unfolds within . . . Decifer the sordid tale while engaging in poker, hearts or gin . . . Scenes of intimate pain, extraordinary desire.

Prison playing cards

A selection of handmade and delicately stencil-printed playing cards,
made by inmates of Russian prisons, ca. 1980s – 1990s.

Playing Card sample book (Irish Free State)

Another sample book, for cards produced in, and proudly representing, the Irish Free State, ca. 1936.

Playing Card sample book (Germany)

A saleman’s sample book for a line of playing cards produced in Northern Germany, circa the early 1950s.

 

Eee!-vacuation

From the “Vacuation” card game, England, ca. 1940

dos a dos a dos a dos a dos a dos a dos a dos

Back patterns for American playing cards
(from the Cary Collection)

USA3

USA167

USA10

USA9

USA21

USA6

USA2

USA7

There’s a moon in the sky.

It’s called the moon.

ASTRONOMIA [card game] / LONDON / PUBLISHED BY F.G. MOON,

20, THREADNEEDLE STREET / 1829

in the Cary Collection of Playing Cards