Artist’s Aces of Spades
Artist’s Aces of Spades deck published by Robert Billingsley, USA, 1986.
This pack was published in a limited edition of just 250 copies by Robert Billingsley in 1986. Each card is an ace of spades and displays an artistically-designed ace. According to the information on one of the jokers “This specially designed pack of 52 aces of spades and two jokers was created by artists and illustrators, both amateur and professional. These designs have never been published before even though they have been made to look authentic”. The cards were issued in a paper wrapper rather than a tuck box. See the wrapper►
Above: Artist’s Aces of Spades published by Robert Billingsley, USA, 1986
Robert Billingsley produced two other packs of his own drawings in this period: Politipack-88 (1988) and Reagan’s Rogues Gallery (1987).
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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