Presidential playing cards
Presidential playing cards with portraits from Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, USA.
This pack was made in Germany for Safari Limited, Miami as an authorised product for the Smithsonian Institution. Each of the 41 American Presidents to have served before the cards were published, ending with George H. Bush (in office between 1989-1993), is represented by a portrait on one of the cards. The remaining 11 cards portray other famous Americans or American iconic images (i.e., Harriett Tubman, Charles Lindbergh, Uncle Sam, a Cherokee dancer, Iwo Jima 1945, etc.). The 2 Jokers show a 19th century parade drum and Teddy Roosevelt’s teddy bear. The name of the artist and the location of the portrait is detailed on the cards, with most, though not all, of the portraits and other images based on paintings that are in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
Above: Presidential playing cards with portraits from Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, made in Germany for Safari Limited, Miami, USA.
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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