Interhotel playing cards

Published January 09, 2023 Updated January 09, 2023

Interhotel playing cards printed by Obchodni Tiskárny (OTK), Prague, and published by the Interhotel chain in 1972.

1972 Czechoslovakia Obchodní Tiskárny Advertising

This 32-card pack was printed by the Obchodni Tiskárny Kolin N.P. (OTK), Prague and published by the Interhotel chain in 1972. It is one of a series of packs produced by the Interhotel chain of hotels between 1958 and 1975 and is German-suited. The Interhotel Group was a part of the State travel agency Čedok until 1990.

Each suit represents a different period. The hearts show how hotels or taverns might have been enjoyed in the days of Charlemagne; bells -- at the time of the Austrian Empire; acorns -- during the Napoleonic period, and leaves -- the modern way of enjoying the hotel in the 1970s. Each card names a different Czechoslovak hotel, bar or restaurant.

Interhotel playing cards printed by the Obchodni Tiskárny Kolin N.P. (OTK), Prague and published by the Interhotel chain in 1972 Interhotel playing cards printed by the Obchodni Tiskárny Kolin N.P. (OTK), Prague and published by the Interhotel chain in 1972 Interhotel playing cards printed by the Obchodni Tiskárny Kolin N.P. (OTK), Prague and published by the Interhotel chain in 1972 Interhotel playing cards printed by the Obchodni Tiskárny Kolin N.P. (OTK), Prague and published by the Interhotel chain in 1972

Above: Interhotel playing cards printed by the Obchodni Tiskárny Kolin N.P. (OTK), Prague and published by the Interhotel chain in 1972.

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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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