Suzuki playing cards
Suzuki playing cards produced by Nintendo, Japan, 1978.
Sometimes known as “Drivers and crew” this pack was produced by Nintendo in 1978. The colourful cartoon court cards wear helmets and are engaged in activities related to motor sport, and the single special joker is signed, presumably by the artist, “K. Ando”. With the exception of the ace of spades, which displays a black & white checkered flag inside a laurel wreath, the remaining aces and court cards are standard.
Above: Suzuki playing cards produced by Nintendo, Japan, 1978.
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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