Playing cards from Finland
Above: non-standard Lyxspelkort playing cards for Finland, c.1930s, chromolithography by F. Tilgmann.
Above: Turun Linna Playing Cards, made in Finland, c.1960. The court cards feature people from Finnish history. Later editions were made by Piatnik for Finland. The cards are barrel-shaped, 52 cards + 2 jokers. The backs show Turku castle, one of the largest surviving medieval buildings in Finland. More →
Above: deck depicting Napoleonic characters on the court cards. Reverse: blue/white advert for Vesipuisto Lahnajärvi. 52 barrel-shaped + 2 jokers + blank card.
Finnish cards have a relatively short history, presumably because the country only finally broke loose from Russian influence in 1920. Finland belonged to Sweden for several hundred years, and since a reconciliation with Sweden was made, many decks are bi-lingual.
The most common form of indices is 13, 12, 11, 10, 9... etc. but in some cases the indices are: K, R and D or K, D and S.
Traditional ‘Happy Families’ card games like Pekka-Peli have been played by Finnish children for decades. A new culturally aware version of this traditional card game, called ‘Reshuffle’, has recently been created by Reetta Hiltunen.
There are various Finland Souvenir packs, as well as several special packs published by Finnair, Image style magazine, Vesipuisto, etc.
Above: Finland souvenir playing cards.
Above: Finnair playing cards.