Long-lost playing cards printed in city found after 100 years

The deck of 17th-century playing cards, printed in Edinburgh, are thought to have lain undiscovered in stores for at least 100 years.

They were found by a cataloguer working his way through the collection of rare books at St Andrews University. Since the discovery, Daryl Green has been able to trace only one other set of the cards in existence, in the library of Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford in the Scottish Borders.

Now the cards, which are printed on paper and were mounted in a book in the late 18th century, will be made available to researchers as part of the library collection.

The title card of the pack bears the Capital's crest, and says it was printed in Edinbugh in 1691.

It also bears the title "Phylarcharum Scotorum gentilicia insignia", or "Family signs of the princes or Scotland".

Like modern cards, the deck contains all four suits with number and picture cards, and each bears drawings of a number of heraldic shields relating to Scottish nobility.

Mr Green said he was "surprised and impressed" to come across the cards: "They've certainly been in the collection for probably the last 100 years or so. They were stored in our strong room, and I'm working book by book through the catalogue. At first I didn't know what I had in my hands."

When he realised the book contained a mounted pack of cards, he tried to research their history, but found it more difficult than it would be normally - they didn't appear at all in the British Library's records.

He said: "The paper that they're mounted on is late 18th century so it looks like somebody bought them at a sale and mounted them into a book.

"Normally, playing cards in the 17th century, like cards now, would have been mounted on a thicker board and in these there's no evidence of that, so I don't know whether they were bought in a sheet and cut out to be mounted in the book."

After discovering that another set of the cards was held at Abbotsford, he found records there which recorded their creator as a near namesake of the author, reading: "Walter Scot, goldsmith of Edinburgh, was admitted into the fraternity of his craft in 1686."

Mr Green said it would not have been unusual for a goldsmith of the time to also work as a printer: "Gutenberg (the inventor of modern printing] was a goldsmith - they went in tandem for a long time."He was used to working in metal so engraving would have been second nature to him."

Records suggest that the university's copy was originally in the collection of antiquarian David Laing, and may have been bought via Sotheby's in the 19th century.

Mr Green said it would be difficult to place a value on the cards: "With a regular printed book it's not that hard to do, but with ephemeral material like this, the market goes up and down a lot more.

"Because of the scarcity of these things - maybe a couple of thousand pounds."

However, they will not be up for sale any time soon, and will remain in the library's collection, he said: "We don't have any fixed exhibition space, but being in the library hopefully they'll become a good tool for research and for teaching as well. If someone was interested in heraldry there's research that can be done in particular."