No. 17 (Bicycle®) playing cards

Published June 16, 2023 • Updated November 28, 2023

No. 17 playing cards designed by Lorenzo Gaggiotti, Sweden, 2015.

The designer of this pack is the Swede, Lorenzo Gaggiotti and “Stockholm17” is the name he uses for his playing card projects. The cards were produced through Kickstarter funding in 2015 in two versions: a Bicycle® branded pack (described here) and an unbranded pack. The faces of the cards are the same for both, though the backs and the tuck-boxes differ. See the box►

All the court cards are illustrated, the aces are giant and decorated. The pips have a custom design and a non-standard placement. According to the original Kickstarter campaign website “There is no specific theme in this deck, it´s quite eclectic and I let my fantasy run when I illustrated the courts. The diamonds have clearly an Egyptian resemblance, but overall they belong to a parallel world. There is a thing that connects all the court cards: the text circling the background is a part of the Aeneid, a Latin epic poem written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans”.

Bicycle No. 17 playing cards designed by Lorenzo Gaggiotti (Stockholm17), Sweden, 2015

Above: Bicycle version of No. 17 playing cards designed by Lorenzo Gaggiotti (Stockholm17), Sweden, 2015. Manufactured by USPCC.

There are two jokers, a third card depicting a pumpkin-headed “Jack-O” (jack-o'-lantern?), and a gaff card. The Bicycle® branded version has a cherry red back.

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By Peter Burnett

United Kingdom • 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.