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# 5

 

Archive label with pieces of a bag attached, French, around 1750.

 

 

Collection Gejus van Diggele # 1017

 

This month I like to show you a very early and simple secondary use of playing cards. In the old days legal documents were kept in bags. To record the content of each bag a playing card came in handy. Playing cards were used as label with hand-written information. In this case it was a law suit with three parties. ‘Contre’ means ‘against’. On its corners the card has been sewn to the bag. 

Much later somebody found the bag and removed the playing card. It looks like he was in a hurry. Was is not legal to take the card? Still attached to three corners are pieces of the18th-century bag, so we can see of what material this bag was made. 

By the way, it was not me who removed the card from the bag. I would have taken the complete bag, just to show it to you.

Gejus             

 

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