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A Soviet souvenir deck printed in Leningrad in 1976, with a firebird-and-lion box in red and gold and a gilded, silver and crimson card back. Every card is here, including a sly, scepter-wielding jester.
Maker: Leningrad Color Printing Combine (Союзполиграфпром)
Condition: Cards are Very Good, clean and bright with mild edge toning. The box is Good, with a paper-loss patch on the top flap, a tear at the thumb notch, edge and corner wear and splits, and light staining on the back panel. Please review photos closely before purchasing, as all sales are final.
The box is lettered "Игральные карты сувенирные" (Souvenir Playing Cards) and states 54 sheets, which accounts for the 52-card deck and two jokers; this deck also includes two blank cards. It carries article number 2608 р, technical standard ТУ 29/01-4-71, an original price of 2 rubles 70 kopecks, and a 1976 date stamp. Two crowned firebirds sit above a suit medallion held aloft by rampant lions. The card back is a red lion roundel framed by crossed axes, swords and maces. The aces are framed in green paisley borders, and the indices use the Cyrillic "Т" for туз, the Russian word for ace. The joker is a jester in red, yellow and burgundy holding a face-topped scepter.
A fine find for collectors of Soviet-era ephemera and playing cards, or for anyone who wants a conversation piece for a game room or bookshelf.
The box credits the Leningrad Color Printing Combine, printing at Obukhovskoy Oborony Avenue 110 under the state printing association Soyuzpoligrafprom. The firm traces its lineage to the Imperial Playing Card Factory, founded in St. Petersburg in 1817 under Tsar Alexander I, with its profits directed to orphanages and hospitals. By the 1970s the Leningrad combine was issuing illustrated decks by Soviet artists, among them V. M. Sveshnikov's "Maya" deck of 1975, and souvenir decks like this one were made for gifts and keepsakes.
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