Noord Braband “Historical Playing Cards”

This set of “Historical Playing Cards” with an accompanying booklet was originally commissioned by Northern Brabant Insurance Society, Waalwijk, and manufactured by Speelkaartenfabriek Nederland in 1943. However, the company declined to pay for the order and the cards were sold off with the Noord Braband insurance company logo overprinted. The artwork was by Jan Wijga and depicts important people and landmarks in the history of the province of North Brabant. It was reprinted again by Speelkaartenfabriek Nederland in 1952, this time without borders around the designs, as shown here.

Above: “Historical Playing Cards” originally commissioned by Northern Brabant Insurance Society on the occasion of their 100th anniversary and manufactured by Speelkaartenfabriek Nederland in 1943, but reprinted here in 1952. 52 cards + Joker + bridge score card in a shiny laminated box with accompanying booklet titled “People and monuments in the history of North Brabant” which includes half pictures in full colour of all the court cards with a description. Pieter Bruegel is depicted as the Jolly Joker and is described as a “painter of cheerful scenes from the life of the people of Brabant”. Images courtesy Rex Pitts.

REFERENCES

Webmagazine Cultureel Brabant: Een oud-Brabants Historisch Kaartspel→

WWPCM website: deck "Noord Braband", 1943→

Thanks to Joop Muller for clarification of the publication details.   See also: www.speelkaartenmuseum.nl/→

By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)

Member since January 30, 2009

View Articles

Rex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many.

His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.

Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service.

Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.

His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.