Illustrated Playing Cards

Published January 13, 2026 • Updated January 14, 2026

Illustrated (or “pictorial”) playing cards replace the standard faces with scenes and text, turning a pack into a miniature picture book. Popular in Britain from the late 1600s into the 1700s, many depict contemporary events, satire and everyday life.

Above: Two illustrated cards from c. 1679 depicting episodes from the Spanish Armada of 1588. WCMPC Collection.

Illustrated (or ‘Pictorial’) playing-cards are a highly collectable type but these days fairly rarely seen. They reached the height of popularity from around 1680 until the 1750s or so. Relative to standard cards it seems that they are better survivors – not surprisingly perhaps, since they would rarely have been worn out through play and they may well have been bought as something to keep in the first place.

In ‘illustrated’ or ‘pictorial’ packs, the standard card faces are replaced with drawings and text. A common format is for the cards to be used like a storyboard with illustrations and text telling the reader all about a specific historical event. Well known examples cover topics like The Spanish Armada, The Popish Plot, The South Sea Bubble and similar.

The Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards, in the City of London, UK, has a good many fine examples in its collection and I have used these in all the illustrations here.

For those interested in finance, several early packs tell the story of the famous ‘East India’ trading company, the early days of stock trading in London and the ‘South Sea Bubble’. This was one of the earlier known and most extreme of the many financial ‘bubbles’ – market conditions in which prices rise and rise as the bandwagon gains momentum.

One of the cards (shown) is titled “Furnishing of Funerals to all parts of Great Britain” and the caption reads:

Come all ye sickly mortals die apace

And Solemn Pomps your Funeral shall grace

Old Rusty Hackneys shall attend each Hearse

And Scarecrows in black gowns complete the farce

Above: “Furnishing of Funerals to all parts of Great Britain” (“bubble card”), Bowles and Bowen, London, 1720–1745. WCMPC Collection.

The second deals with an ealy offer of life assurance:

Come all ye generous Husbands, with your Wives,

Insure round sums, on your precarious lives,

That to your comfort, when you’re Dead and Rotten

Your widows may be rich when you're forgotten.

Above: “Insurance on Lives” (“bubble card”) on early life assurance, Bowles and Bowen, London, 1720–1745. WCMPC Collection.

Above: county map cards of Yorkshire (left) and Cornwall (right) from Morden’s Maps, London, 1676. WCMPC Collection.

Above: map cards of the United States (left) and Canada (right) from “Hodges Geographical”, 1828. WCMPC Collection.

As in every bubble since – from Dutch tulip bulbs to “dot com” internet start-ups with no plans, the folly of it all becomes much clearer with hindsight, and much mockery can be made at the expense of those who lost out.

Once this idea of illustrated cards had gained popularity, many variations followed. There are satirical packs, entertaining packs, educational packs (covering numeracy, literacy, etc) historical and geographical packs. The Geographical packs (for example, the Counties of England and Wales) are early examples of printed maps can reach tens of thousands of pounds at auction.

Many examples of these various kinds have survived even from the seventeenth century. As well as the Worshipful Company Collection (examples shown here), The British Museum has an excellent collection inherited from a very wealthy and equally knowledgeable Victorian expert, Lady Charlotte Schreiber. Lady Schreiber also prepared a comprehensive catalogue of her collection, which encompasses many countries and many kinds of cards besides her obvious interest in illustrated examples.

The Geographical cards seem popular as they continued to be made for a long long time. Our second example comes roughly 150 years after “Morden’s Maps” in the previous illustration. This is “The New Royal Playing Cards – Hodges Geographcal” and is very luxuriously made around 1728.

While the geography of the USA seems well understood, there is apparently very little known about Canada at that time. Here (see the image above) much of modern Canada is claimed as “British America” and this was fairly early in the period of British occupation following the earlier French rule.

**Right:** Queen of Diamonds (left) and Queen of Clubs (right) from “Hodges Geographical”, 1828. Note the unconventional suit signs (gold diamond and green clover) used in this pack.

The court cards from the Hodges set are quite something too. In keeping with the maps and the geographical theme, they illustrate people from different nations around the world. Two of the Queens are shown above (and note also the unconventional suit signs (gold diamonds, green clover for clubs).

Above: illustrated card after John Kirk, “Cries and Humours of London”, 1750s.

Many of the sets capture contemporary life and offer us a glimpse of times past.

Some of these cards are particularly appealing, and my own favourite among these is a pack that leaves behind the weighty events of the day and looks at the people on London’s streets – the sellers of bread, fruit, flowers and fish, the polishers of shoes and so on. In the illustration below , the oarsman is offering transport to Vauxhall Gardens, a grand evening venue at the time, and the seller of the Evening Post has a job that we are still familiar with today.

References

Bostock, Paul; Clear the Decks, 52 Plus Joker (2019).

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By Paul Bostock

United Kingdom • Member since May 07, 2024

Paul has been a collector of playing cards since his early teenage years, the mid 1970s. In the last 20 years or so he has specialised in standard English cards and their story. His collection, including many other English Standards, are featured on his website plainbacks.com. Paul is currently editor of Clear the Decks, the Journal of 52 Plus Joker, the American club for playing card collectors, and is a member of the IPCS Council, an EPCS member and a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing cards, a City of London livery company.