Empics playing cards
Photography from the UK and around the world, past and present.
PA Images is Britain's national photography agency (www.paimages.co.uk). PA provide up-to-the-minute local and international news, sport and showbiz coverage, with a vast archive of over 30 million online and non-digitised images. EMPICS appears to be the name of its database of photography from the UK and around the world, past and present. From its website we learn that “Award-winning for innovation and originality, our team capture personality, emotion and energy; outstanding moments from the pitch, court and stage alike”. See the box►
This pack of cards depicts 54 images from the collection covering the many diverse aspects of life, sport, politics and social drama. Unfortunately, the pack is undated.
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.
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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