Margaret Parrott playing cards
Margaret Parrott playing cards decorated with whimsical parrots, USA, c. 1997.
This pack of cards was printed by Carta Mundi, inc., Kingsport, Tennessee and was created by Margaret Parrott, an artist and distributor living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. While the pip cards are standard, the aces, court cards and the two jokers are decorated with whimsical parrots (her “family icon”) in bright tropical colours. The cards were originally distributed as single and double packs in a clear Lucite box.
Above: Margaret Parrott playing cards, c.1997.
In addition to this pack Margaret Parrott, together with her son, Thom has produced a Parrott Tarot deck, and another pack “Pacific Northwest native Indian masks”►
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.
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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