K Deck
“K Deck” political playing cards, USA, c. 2004.
This pack was published in or around 2004 - the same time as the B-Deck and the W-Deck, each pack satirizing respectively Tony Blair and George W. Bush. The K deck similarly superimposes the face of John F. Kerry on a multitude of different, scurrilously inappropriate and often glamour photographs on each of the 54 cards. Among the representations Kerry is shown as a glamour model, bathing beauty, baby, dog, Viking, various Hollywood actresses, Frankenstein, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and many others. Several of the images are actually repeated in the B-Deck (e.g. the queen and ten of diamonds in this pack are the same as the ten and seven of diamonds in the B-Deck). The jokers use the same image in both packs. See the box►
Above: K Deck satirical playing cards, USA, c.2004.
Note: Kerry won the Democrat Presidential nomination in 2004 but was ultimately beaten by George W. Bush.
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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