Knot playing cards
Knot playing cards intended to teach a variety of useful and interesting knots, USA, 2000.
This somewhat unusual and esoteric pack is intended to help the user learn knots that can make outdoor activities safer, less work and more enjoyable. The knots are broadly arranged by activity: hearts (camping), spades (horse riding), clubs (boating/fishing), diamonds (climbing). Over 50 rope knots are explained. The pack was printed by the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) for Runnin’W of Wilsonville, Oregon, in 2000. There are two jokers and two extra information cards which include load and safety data, knot categories (knots, hitches and bends) and a suggested further reading list. See the box►
Above: Knot playing cards printed by the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) for Runnin’W of Wilsonville, Oregon, in 2000.
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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