Sant Jordi playing cards
Catalonia’s patron saint celebrated on cards with non-standard suits designed by Jan Baca and Marta Peralta.
Saint George (Sant Jordi in Catalan) is the patron saint of Aragon, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Cáceres and Catalonia. On Saint George’s Day (23rd April), particularly in Catalonia, it is traditional to offer a rose and, since the 1920s, a book. The rose has become a symbol of Catalan culture and has been used as one of the suits in this pack. The other suits are dragons (slayed by Saint George), barretinas (a traditional Catalan man’s red woollen hat, representing links to the land), and submarines (the Ictineo, a pioneering 19th century submarine launched in the Port of Barcelona on 2 October 1864, representing endless imagination). The playful courts engage with each of these suit-signs in line-drawn images created by Jan Baca (an architect by trade) and Marta Peralta. The indices R, D and V represent the Catalan words for king (rei), lady (dama) and boy (vailet). See the box►
Above: Sant Jordi playing cards published by Jan Baca, Marta Peralta and Ramon Quer, Barcelona, Spain, 2020. 52 cards + 2 (identical) Jokers + 1 extra card in tuck box. Size: 61 x 91 mm. Purchased in Barcelona, December 2025.
The commission came from Ramon Quer and took three years to complete. The cards were then produced in an edition of just 750 packs.
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By Roddy Somerville
France • Member since May 31, 2022
Roddy started collecting stamps on his 8th birthday. In 1977 he joined the newly formed playing-card department at Stanley Gibbons in London before setting up his own business in Edinburgh four years later. His collecting interests include playing cards, postcards, stamps (especially playing cards on stamps) and sugar wrappers. He is a Past President of the Scottish Philatelic Society, a former Chairman of the IPCS, a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards and Curator of the WCMPC’s collection of playing cards. He lives near Toulouse in France.
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