Playing Card Books - References

Part 2? Yes! in case you missed the excitement, part one appeared in Playing Card Books - Introductions to Collecting. That dealt with several general user-friendly introductions to the subject, while this new article is about reference books, the ‘go-to’ volumes for looking up all things card-related.

The first, because it's the one I have had the longest, is ‘Playing Cards’ by the Fournier Museum, published by Fournier in 1982.

Above: Cover of Playing Cards (Fournier Museum).

The book is an account of the Museum’s collection, which is highly diverse, covering all regions of the world, many in great detail. There are many early examples too. As you might expect, it is especially strong on Spanish cards and their history. It is very well illustrated (see typical example ). The only criticism is that it is not totally reliable on dates.

Above: Cover of Catherine Perry Hargrave’s A History of Playing Cards (1930).

An earlier and also comprehensive guide is Catherine Perry Hargrave’s ‘A History of Playing Cards’, 1930. This is essentially a guide to the Collection of USPC, originally belonging to Englishman George Clulow - a past Master of the Worshipful Company (1889). Clulow sold his collection to USPC in 1905, and it was then updated and researched by John Omwake, to whom the book is dedicated.

Above: Cover of Joan Berry’s Playing-cards of the World (1995).

The Collection is again very geographically spread and again contains many older items.

In a very similar vein we have John Berry’s ‘Playing Cards of the World’, 1995. This is a catalogue of the Worshipful Company Collection - and John Berry’s catalogue entries and descriptions from the book are currently shown, together with images of the cards, on the WCMPC website.

John Berry was a mathematician and former employee at Bletchley Park - Britain’s wartime and post war code-breaking facility. This comes across in the great accuracy and attention to detail in all the descriptions.

Another American reference is ‘The Cary Collection of Playing Cards’ by William B Keller of Yale University Library, 1981. This is the collection of cards, plates and prints acquired by Melbert B Cary Jr and bequeathed to Yale by his wife Mary Flagler Cary. As it says in the introduction “one of the world’s most distinguished collections of such materials”.

Indeed this is almost an understatement, as the card collection is truly incredible with many many ancient and high quality items. Last year I had occasion to look into As Nas cards from Persia (now Iran). While many collections have an example or two, the Cary collection has forty, all between 1800 and 1905.

The books themselves - four volumes in all - are a collector’s item in their own right and they are very beautifully produced. Each has a facsimile card - each from a different area - pasted onto the cover (as above). The research is meticulous and often this is a volume to try out where others fall short.

Above: Sylvia Mann, All Cards on the Table (1990): text volume and plates.

Similar in historic scope, is ‘All cards on the Table’ by Sylvia Mann published in 1990 with the support of the Deuthches Spielkarten-Muesum (German Playing Card Museum.)

Sylvia was perhaps the first researcher to take playing cards and their history seriously and she was a founding member of the International Playing Card Society.

There are several popular books by Sylvia Mann, including ‘Collecting Playing Cards’, 1966 which was reviewed in my first article on this subject. ‘All Cards on the Table’ is her magnum opus. This is an account of her own collection, covering the history of the subject in great depth.

There are two volumes with a card sleeve: one volume of of text (in English and German) and one with plates of images.

Lastly, I recognise that American cards are the main interest of many of our readers. The two volumes below require little further explanation from me - the ‘Hochman Encyclopedia’ was refiewwed in my first article and ‘Paper Empires’ was reviewed in the first Clear the Decks of this year - so this is just a reminder not to forget these great resources!