One of the most extensive collections of playing cards ever assembled resides at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.Known as the Cary Collection, it consists of over 2600 packs of cards, 460 sheets of uncut card papers, and 150 wood blocks for printing cards. The Collection contains standard cards from 16 European countries and 6 countries in the Western Hemisphere, as well as nonstandard cards from 23 European and 3 Western Hemisphere countries, and its content represents over 500 years of cardmaking.The "nonstandard" cards include subjects like: Advertisement, Cartomancy, Education, History, Humor, and Souvenir types, many not intended...
