400 Year Old Playing Cards Reveal Royal Secret

[Will W.]

This is an interesting old story I dug up from 2012.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2012/11/30/400-year-old-playing-cards-reveal-royal-secret/

[TheBadJoker]

The article states that only 5 sets of silver playing cards are known.  One of the sets was on view at the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam.  Perhaps they are still on display.

[Will W.]

The article states that only 5 sets of silver playing cards are known.  One of the sets was on view at the Jewish Museum in Amsterdam.  Perhaps they are still on display.

That would be awesome to see but Im afraid Amsterdam is a little too far from home for me. 

[52plusjoker]

Around 1870, one of these sets was inventoried as part of a large estate somewhere in eastern Europe. At the time a very limited edition of 200 prints of the deck were produced by a printing process using the cards as plates. We were lucky enough to acquire one of these sets together with a little book including their history - unfortunately, we were silly enough to sell the set to a European collector!
Here is some information about this little treasure from a listing of silver decks.
The art expert Dr. Carl Förster from Munich got the request from Count Friedrich von Rotheburg to make an inventory of his art collection. Förster found a card deck made from silver, 36 cards, German suits and the inscription on the frame "GOD ENDOWS THIS GAME WITH LUCK THAT LETS ONE LIVE PEACEFULLY" (translated naturally), which should be actually more or less the same inscription as on the silver deck described by Richard Sibela below, which was found in the Museum in Krakau. The motifs show similarities, but also enough differences. Förster printed from the engraved cards deck 200 copies and published them in 1881.