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Rasta playing cards

Published December 18, 2022 Updated December 18, 2022

Rasta playing cards celebrating the Rastafari religion.

2002 Spain Heraclio Fournier Cannabis Religion

These delightful and quirky cards were made in 2002 by Heraclio Fournier and they celebrate the Rastafari religion. Instead of the traditional suits the pack features marijuana joints, bongs, cannabis leaves and the hallucinogenic amanita muscaria mushrooms. The court cards appear to hark back to the 1960s and 1970s when Rastafari gained increased respectability within Jamaica and greater visibility abroad through the popularity of Rasta-inspired reggae musicians like Bob Marley. See the box

Rasta playing cards made by Heraclio Fournier in 2002 to celebrate the Rastafari religion Rasta playing cards made by Heraclio Fournier in 2002 to celebrate the Rastafari religion

Above: Rasta playing cards made by Heraclio Fournier in 2002 to celebrate the Rastafari religion.

• Wikipedia: Rastafari

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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.

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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