Sixty Penguin Years Playing Cards

Published October 24, 2022 Updated October 28, 2022

In celebration of 60 years of publishing Penguin Books Ltd, 1995.

1995 United Kingdom Penguin Books Ltd Commemorative Literature
Sixty Penguin years playing cards, Penguin Books Ltd, 1995

In celebration of 60 years of publishing (1935-1995), Penguin Books Ltd. produced this promotional pack of 54 cards in 1995. Each card shows an original book cover from the broad range of titles produced in the many different Penguin series: Mystery and crime; Fiction; World affairs; Classics; Travel and adventure, etc.

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Sixty Penguin years playing cards, Penguin Books Ltd, 1995 Sixty Penguin years playing cards, Penguin Books Ltd, 1995 Sixty Penguin Years playing cards, Penguin Books Ltd, 1995 Sixty Penguin years playing cards, Penguin Books Ltd, 1995

Above: Sixty Penguin Years playing cards, Penguin Books Ltd, 1995.

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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.

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.

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