Habesha playing cards
Habesha playing cards published by “Ethiopian Reflection”
Wonderful rare 54 card pack published by “Ethiopia Reflection.” The words “Habesha Playing Cards” appear on the back of the box, and the name “Ethiopian Reflection” appears on the front and back of the box. Everything else in writing on the box and on the cards is in Amharic. This includes the indices and court card rank designations on the cards. The suit symbols are conventional French suit symbols, and the courts are a charming non-standard design. See the box►
Habesha is a pan-ethnic cultural identity that has been historically employed to refer to Semitic language-speaking and predominantly Orthodox Christian peoples found in the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea between Asmara and Addis Ababa (i.e. the modern-day Amhara, Tigrayan, Tigrinya peoples) and this usage remains common today.
Above: Habesha playing cards published by “Ethiopian Reflection”.
By Peter Burnett
United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022 • Contact
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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