K Deck

Published February 10, 2024 Updated February 10, 2024

“K Deck” political playing cards, USA, c. 2004.

2004 USAPoliticalSatire

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

K Deck satirical playing cards, USA, c.2004 K Deck satirical playing cards, USA, c.2004 K Deck satirical playing cards, USA, c.2004

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.

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By Peter Burnett

United Kingdom • Member since July 27, 2022 • Contact

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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