Astronaut
Astronaut card game published by Pepys Series (Castell Bros) celebrating the arrival of space travel, 1960s
Astronaut card game published by Pepys Series (Castell Bros Ltd) with colour pictures of Russian and American spacecraft, celebrating the arrival of space travel, 1960s. The illustrations depict aspects of space exploration such as astronaut training, take-off, booster rockets, landing on the moon, sputniks and computers being checked.

Above: Astronaut card game published by Pepys Series in the 1960s with pictures of spacecraft. 44 cards in box. The game has been re-issued by The Lagoon Group since 2011►


By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)
Member since January 30, 2009
View ArticlesRex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many.
His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.
Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service.
Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.
His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.