Playing cards

Ancient 52-card deck, a historical reproduction of the English satirical deck from 1689 known as 'The Orange Playing Cards'. The deck features satirical and captioned illustrations of political events of the era, a political metaphor used to describe the exploitation of religious and sectarian divisions for power, specifically between British and Irish politics. These cards also represent a very important precursor to modern comic strips. Players of the time, while playing, could reconstruct and comment on the current events.