Series III. German and Austrian Playing Cards

Series III. contains 62 decks, with date ranges from 1566 to 1890, and 2004. This series holds many notable decks, as well as the oldest dated playing card. "Stukeley's" cards, after those in the British Museum" contains 13 cards out of an original deck of 48 or 52. Some of the cards, dated 1546 on the 9 of hearts, have worm holes. This may be the earliest surviving date on cut cards (A date of 1544 appears on an uncut sheet of cards). The accompanying wrapper tells of the 1797 discovery in a country barn of the cards "contemporaneous with Martin Luther." These cards closely resemble cards in the British Museum, which are known as "Stukeley's Cards" after their discoverer.

"Biedermeier" and "[Translucent Deck]" reveal erotic scenes when held to the light. "Jeanne d'Arc," from 1805, is the oldest of all published transformation card packs. The images are derived from Schiller's play "Joan of Arc."

"Metamorphosen der Neuzeit fur Knaben" (Modern Transformations for Boys) includes interchangeable heads and bodies. The resulting people can stand up like paper dolls. "Frag und Antwort Karten-speil" (Question and Answer Card Game) is another metamorphosis game which doubles as a conversation game: the top section contains a question and the bottom sections contain interchangeable answers. "Musicalisches Kartenspiel besichend in Kuhreihen" (Musical card-game consisting of round-singing) shows lines of Thuringian folk-songs on each card, one song per suit. "Spielkarten vom Jahre 1848" depicts the events of the 1848 Austrian revolution.

"Das Delphische-Orakel" (The Oracle of Delphi) offers at least six different kinds of games which could be played with just one deck. A fortune telling game, sentence-formation game, dice game, lottery game, word-formation game, and checkers-type game can all be played with these cards, which feature multiple scenes and numbers on each face.

Cards in this series were manufactured in Vienna, Frankfurt, Leipzig, Göbl, Tübingen, Linz, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Berlin, Munuch, Neub, and Darmstadt, Germany. See the database for more detailed information on creators and publishers. Cards are ordered by date and thereunder alphabetically by name or subject. Cards with known dates always come before those with circa dates.