Deutsches Spielkarten-Museum, Playing card museum in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany
The Deutsches Spielkartenmuseum in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, a branch of the Württemberg State Museum, holds one of Europe's largest public playing-card collections: over 30,000 decks and more than a million individual cards, plus a games library with archive, a graphics collection, card presses, printing blocks, glasses and gaming tables. Its Asian-Indian card collection is considered the most comprehensive and finest worldwide. The museum belongs to the International Playing Card Society.
The museum began in 1923 as the Skatheimat, a one-room collection in Altenburg Castle initiated by Julius Benndorf with help from Carl Schneider of the Stralsund card factory. By 1939 it held 6,000 packs. In 1946 the Soviet military administration removed the collection during the dismantling of the ASS factory; its whereabouts remain unknown. The ASS company museum later moved to Leinfelden, and in 1972 it absorbed the Bielefeld-based Deutsches Spielkartenmuseum, opening at its Leinfelden site in 1974.
The collection shows cards from different cultures and time periods, revealing how people around the world have created games and expressed their artistic traditions. Visitors can observe how designs and production techniques vary depending on where and when the cards were made.
Since 2024 the archive has again had a general visiting period on Wednesdays from 2 to 5 pm; outside these hours it can be viewed by prior arrangement. Temporary exhibitions are shown in the Leinfelden-Echterdingen municipal museum, not at the archive itself. The building is not wheelchair accessible.
The Asian-Indian card collection is described in the sources as the most comprehensive and beautiful of its kind worldwide, and the museum belongs to the International Playing Card Society. Among the holdings are card presses, printing blocks, glasses and gaming tables.
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