Hobby horse playing cards
Hobby horse playing cards produced by Michael Evans in a limited edition of 350 packs, 1986.
Announced on the back cover of the March 1986 issue of the EPCS Newsletter, this pack was produced by Michael Evans in a limited edition of 350 packs.
The spade court cards are shown holding garden spades; clubs literally holding clubs; diamond courts holding diamonds with their sharp, sparkly edges; hearts were left to the discretion of the artist, Nicholas Thompson-Moore. He depicts the ace of hearts as a closely drawn pair of French knickers, the jack shows the three broken hearts of the other suits tattooed on his left arm, and “the king and queen trying to be a little bit discrete having been caught red-handed as it were”. Particularly noteworthy is the unusual formation and irregular pattern found on the pip cards. There are 7 different jokers.
Above: Hobby horse playing cards with artwork by Nicholas Thompson-Moore, produced by Michael Evans in a limited edition of 350 packs, 1986.
Above: excerpt from the March 1986 issue of the EPCS Newsletter.
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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