Covered bridges playing cards

Published September 07, 2024 • Updated September 07, 2024

Historical covered bridges with photography by Bill Miller, 2006.

About 14,000 covered bridges were built in the rural areas of the United States, mostly in the years 1825 to 1875. Today, roughly 750 remain, with the majority located in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Vermont, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. They were typically constructed of timber trusses with a roof and side walls both to provide structural support and also, primarily, to keep the trusses dry and protect the bridge from sun, snow, and rain. As covered bridges have aged and been replaced by modern bridges, many of those remaining have been turned in to historical sites or museums.

This pack, produced in 2006 by Real Souvenir Playing Cards, a part of Newt’s Playing cards, reminds us of the important role played by these bridges both in the history of US transportation and civil engineering. Each of the 54 cards shows photos of covered bridges from Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky, with the name and location of each. The photos were taken by photographer Bill Miller. See the box

Historical covered bridges playing cards with photography by Bill Miller, produced in 2006 by Real Souvenir Playing Cards

Above: historical covered bridges playing cards with photography by Bill Miller, produced in 2006 by Real Souvenir Playing Cards.

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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.