British Political Images
Playing cards depicting British political images from the Bodleian Libraries.
In 2010 a special pack of cards was produced by the Bodleian Library in a limited edition run of 200 to celebrate that year’s Founder’s Day Lunch – an annual event to honour the memory of its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1613) and his legacy of philanthropy. The pack was distributed to the c. 150 guests – mainly benefactors, donors and Friends of the Library. The images on the cards were taken from three of the Library’s archival collections:
- The John Johnson Collection of printed ephemera with c. 1.5 million items dating from 1508-1939
- The Conservative Party archive, dating back to 1867
- The Conservative Party aArchive poster collection.
There are two additional cards: the first provides information about the three sources above, and the second explains how to support the work of the Bodleian Library. See the box►
Above: Playing cards depicting British political images from the Bodleian Libraries, United Kingdom, 2010. Limited edition of 200.
NOTE: This review first appeared (with fewer images) in the English Playing Card Society Newsletter, no. 129, August 2020, p. 6-7.
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.
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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