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Don Quixote playing cards

Published January 11, 2024 Updated January 11, 2024

Don Quixote playing cards designed by Nam Tibon, USA, 2016.

2016 USA Legends Nam Tibon Commemorative Literature

Designed by Nam Tibon of Cellar Window and printed in Taiwan by Legends Playing Card Co., this is the first of a 2 “volume” set devoted to Don Quixote. The pack was published in 2016 as a homage to the creation of Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) on the 400th anniversary of his death.

This volume 1 playing card pack is based on the first volume of the Don Quixote novel with each of the court cards beautifully illustrating the eccentric and memorable central characters of the novel. The pip cards are uniquely arranged. The single joker is Marcela, the beautiful shepherdess. The pack was produced in two versions: the Don pack - black background, and the Hidalgo pack – white background. See the box

Don Quixote playing cards designed by Nam Tibon and printed in Taiwan by Legends Playing Card Co, 2016 Don Quixote playing cards designed by Nam Tibon and printed in Taiwan by Legends Playing Card Co, 2016 Don Quixote playing cards designed by Nam Tibon and printed in Taiwan by Legends Playing Card Co, 2016

Above: Don Quixote playing cards designed by Nam Tibon and printed in Taiwan by Legends Playing Card Co, 2016.

Note: A second pack entitled "Rocinante" based on the second volume of Don Quixote was published in 2018.

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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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