Odd Bods playing cards

Published December 01, 2022 • Updated December 03, 2022

Odd Bods playing cards illustrated by Jonathan Burton, United Kingdom, 2012.

This pack was designed and hand-illustrated by Jonathan Burton. It first appeared in 2012 for the exclusive enjoyment of members of the prestigious Folio Society. The aces and court cards feature a quirky character or amusing and delightful illustration, while the pip cards are arranged in an attractive non-standard pattern with a slight twist on each of the traditional suit signs. In 2016 the pack was re-issued in the USA by Art of Play, San Diego, and printed by the US Playing Card Company. While the cards are identical in both packs, the later pack features an all-new back design and a gold-foil embossed box. (See both boxes)

Above: Odd Bods playing cards illustrated by Jonathan Burton and first published by the Folio Society, 2012. Re-issued by Art of Play in 2016.

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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.