Traditional Nomadic Life of Mongolia

Published August 31, 2022 Updated September 02, 2022

Playing cards depicting paintings of Traditional Nomadic Life of Mongolia.

MongoliaEthnic & Indigenous

A 54-card pack of gently-coloured miniature paintings each illustrating aspects of Mongolian nomadic life. Cards depict a wide range of activities: dancing, playing games, working the fields, herding livestock, cooking outside the yurt, hunting, and working generally with goats, sheep, cattle, camels and horses. There is no indication of publisher or date, but the words "Mongolian Cards" are on the tuck box.

Traditional Nomadic Life of Mongolia

Above: playing cards depicting paintings of Traditional Nomadic Life of Mongolia. 52 cards + 2 jokers, unknown publisher, undated.

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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.

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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