Guns N’ Roses Las Vegas 2012
Guns N’ Roses Las Vegas 2012 promotion playing cards produced by Gemaco, USA.
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1985. Their debut album, "Appetite for Destruction" (1987), reached number one in the USA a year after its release, and has since sold approximately 30 million copies worldwide. In October and November 2012 the group played a residency at The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, originally known as The Joint. The residency was entitled "Appetite for Democracy", celebrating the 25th anniversary of "Appetite for Destruction" and the fourth anniversary of another album, “Chinese Democracy”. This pack of cards was produced by Gemaco as part of the residency promotion and advertising. The jacks and queens are loosely based on the international standard, but the kings wear fedora hats, have skull faces, and show a red rose instead of a suit sign.
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.
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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