Robert Morden’s Playing Cards

Robert Morden’s Playing Cards, 1676

he 52 Counties of England and Wales described as a pack of cards, containing a wealth of information about principal towns, roads, distances from London, hills and rivers, first published in London in 1676, might be regarded as the first pocket atlas.

The King depicted is Charles II and the Queen, his wife, Catherine of Braganza. The cards were printed from copper plates, with the suit symbols being applied later by stencil. In some cards the stencilled suit mark has obliterated the Arabic numeral which represents the value of the card.   See also: Transformation Cards.

Cards from the facsimile edition courtesy Giles de Margary.
Packs can be ordered directly from www.harrymargary.com

See also MailOnline: Yellowed ancient hand-crafted playing cards►

By Simon Wintle

Member since February 01, 1996

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Curator and editor of the World of Playing Cards since 1996. He is a former committee member of the IPCS and was graphics editor of The Playing-Card journal for many years. He has lived at various times in Chile, England and Wales and is currently living in Extremadura, Spain. Simon's first limited edition pack of playing cards was a replica of a seventeenth century traditional English pack, which he produced from woodblocks and stencils.