The Fournier Museum of Playing Cards in Vitoria-Gasteiz Spain

 Since I was in the Basque part of Spain, I worked in a visit to one of very few great playing card museums in the world: the Fournier Museum of Playing Cards.  

More formally, it's called the MUSEO FOURNIER DE NAIPES DE ÁLAVA. It's housed in a gorgeous palace built in the 16th Century - the Bendana Palace - which it shares with a museum of archeology.  

The museum is in a stunning old palace  - the Bendana Palace - built in the 16th Century. It shares with a museum of archeology.  It's a free visit which is nice.  In terms of jokers, the museum is pretty barren. But I loved the museum visit because of the materials on the different techniques for making cards and the presentation of some fantastically beautiful decks. 

The first floor features old machines for printing and a superb 5 minute video on the different techniques.  

While the videos had English subtitles, the museum exhibits are set up for a local audience. More specifically, the text is both in Spanish and Basque. No English. So I’m learning to use Google translate on images.

The museum started as the a private collection by Felix Alfaro Fournier. He was the heir of the Fournier card manufacturing and printing company.    

The exhibits start with a very illuminating section on the history of the printing of playing cards with a video that takes visitors from the early wood cut printing, through the eras of various printing technologies. There are several examples of most of the printing technology.  I was thrilled that for a brief moment, I actually understood the history of printing better than I ever have before. But, like so much, it didn't stick and their cool video about the history of printing does not seem to be online.  So I can't seem to recall the key technologies or sequence. 

I loved the exhibited cards. They were so interesting that I wasn't too disappointed to have made a trip to card museum which mostly features cards printed way before there were jokers with the decks (Remember, I'm primarily a joker collector). Here's a few.

I found the Fournier museum tricky because most of the displays were labelled in two languages: Basque and Spanish. I'm null in the former and not so good in Spanish either. So that was a challenge. Fortunately, the videos had a choice of languages for subtitles and English was strong.  The Fournier museum is along the same lines as the Paris Card Museum.  The Paris one has significantly more materials on display.  Each museum favored their own country's decks which is to be expected.

I look forward to finishing the trifecta by getting myself up to Museum of the Playing Card of Turnhout,  Belgium.

Festival Day! A funny thing about my visit to Fournier is that it was Thursday, July 25, 2024. This turns out to be a big holiday in Spain and in this town of Vitoria-Gasteiz, it is a big holiday. It seems, as best I could understand, that each part of town has their own traditional colors, songs, clothes, and songs. So there were huge parades of people wandering around. Very festive and exciting but a little disorienting since we're driving around with a GPS that seems unaware that much of the city is blocked.

 Even walking around, we always seemed to be going against the current. Did I mention that each crowd had its own variation of marching band, a little Mariachi-ish?

Vitoria-Gasteiz 

Turn your audio on for this video....And then play it over and over again to get a feel for our day

 

I think this holiday might be called the Day of the Blusa there. I even have an excuse to go back since they host an international Magic Festival in Vitoria-Gasteiz

Here's the welcome video of the museum.  I wish they also shared on youtube their video about the history of printing technology.

 Want to see more:

my visit in July 2023 to the Paris Card Museum
An overview of the Joker Collection, organized by themes.  

My Old Congress 606 Decks

My old advertising decks

My Display of Congress and Advertising decks 

Panda Bear Jokers and Cards

 Inside the animal section, there is a section - called the ape sub section - with jokers with monkeys, apes, and bears. It has about 90 different jokers. Most of it is not yet online, here is the last posting about the ape jokers (from 2019).

 One type of bear from this section that has caught my eye and fired my imagination: the Pandas! So I’m writing this call out article about them. Here’s a few panda jokers.

And here is my whole collection of pandas, all together.  So far, 13 panda bear jokers.

There is one deck in particular which is so so so rich with Pandas that I think it merits a call out.  First of all, the artwork on each of the 54 cards is unique.  Here for instance are a bunch of the cards.

If you look closely and have a sharp eye, you'll realize that each card features a different panda bear.  And, if you look closely at the bottom of the card and know how to read Chinese, you'll see that the card gives the name of each panda bear, its mother, its father,  and their birthday. Here's a closeup of two.

And now, thanks to Google translate, I now know that these two pandas are named Yuanzi and Tuantuan. I know their parents and each one has a history related to Taiwan.

Want to see more animal jokers? Here's a guide to the animal kingdom as found on jokers and organized by ... me.

1. Ensemble Animal combinations (cats AND dogs)

Animals: Flyers - Bee Boy

1. Cats  or  Dogs . Felines, Canines. And a big cat subsection! 
2. Flyers:  Birds, Owls, Bees,  Butterflies  & Dragons . With a rooster & chicken subsubsection!
3. Horses , zebras, donkeys, giraffes. Equestrian!
1. Fantasy horses: centaurs, unicorns, Pegasuses
4. Monkeys, bears, and other sapiens (yes, missing links jokers go here)
5. Animals with antlers, horns, and tusks
6. Varmints - the small wild animals
7. Reptiles, amphibians, sea creatures, shell fish, and others 

Ladies and Women - Modern

 There are about 60 jokers with these women and girls.  These are not the jokers with modern political European women, old European women jokers,  nor the jokers with people from the non European/American population. And it's certainly not the sports, cartoon, nor girls in bikinis jokers.

I like the next pair and the contrast between them. The first one is a super modern lady. The one following it is the  American Playing Card Company of Kalamazoo MI's Rover No. 20 joker introduced in 1898.

 

Rover #20 - American Playing Card Company

Here are the ensemble shots. 

Here's a section of younger or smaller women.

The top two on this page are from the Red Hat Society. The Red Hat Society is a unique international playgroup for women that promotes our passion of fun, friendship, fitness, the freedom to express ourselves in positive ways, and a dedication to the fulfillment of lifelong dreams, gained all through the power of fun!

Why not look next at some closely related sections such as American Historical Figures, Modern American Politicians, Cowboys,  Native Americans. American travel jokers  (which have American sites but not people), American Women (this article), and entertainers like Elvis, film people, musicians, or Sports Figures. 

Jokers With Card Designs

 This article focuses on the jokers in the collection which feature cards on the jokers. Like this one:

Here's some more examples of beautiful jokers that feature playing cards. 

Now before we get to the ensemble photos where I show all the jokers featuring playing cards, I should explain that there are other jokers with playing cards pictured on them which are in different sections. I know it can be confusing. Believe me, I know.  Joker taxonomy (or categorization) can be confusing.

To clarify, here is a quick listing of other sections of the collection which could be confused with this one.  All of the sections have playing card jokers with cards on them in one manner or another:

 Artsy cards which feature people with playing cards - Art section

Card trick  performing subsection. Jesters Section, Performing sub section,  
Juggling things, including cards or pips -  Jesters Section, Performing sub section,  

Scatterman - Jokers scattering cards -  Jesters Section, Performing sub section,  
Jokers Promoting more card playing - Advertising section 

Ads for Brands of Playing Cards - Advertising section
Head Shots holding cards - Jesters Section, Heads and Busts subsection, With Hands subsubsection
Card Themed Full Duplex ie Topsy Turvy Cards - Topsy Turvy Section, Cards subsection

Cards featuring Cards - This article

Here are the ensemble shots of jokers featuring playing cards. There are 38 different jokers in this section (4-2024)

Want to see more cards about cards? Here's the other sections:

 Artsy cards which feature playing cards - Art section

Card trick  performing subsection. Jesters Section, Performing sub section,  
Juggling things, including cards or pips -  Jesters Section, Performing sub section,  

Scatterman - Jokers scattering cards -  Jesters Section, Performing sub section,  
Jokers Promoting more card playing - Advertising section 

Ads for Brands of Playing Cards - Advertising section
Head Shots holding cards - Jesters Section, Heads and Busts subsection, With Hands subsubsection
Card Themed Full Duplex ie Topsy Turvy Cards - Topsy Turvy Section, Cards subsection
Cards featuring Cards - This article

Note to self. There's some ambiguity or confusion between this group and the group with the word "joker" in the middle.  For instance, on this page grouped here, there is one that clearly has the word joker in the middle. Also, there's one that might be a full duplex topsy turvy.  Also, focus on the two jokers with the big "J", shouldn't they be with the ones on the page beneath it which is currently in the group with the word joker in the middle.