Rare complete catalogue: volume 1 and 2: text, volume 3 and 4: plates. The Cary Collection of Playing Cards, held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University in the USA, is one of the most significant assemblages of materials relating to playing cards and related ephemera in North America. The collection is comparable to card collections held by the United States Playing Card Company, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Deutsches Spielkarten Museum, and the British Museum. The collection lays claim to more than 2600 packs of cards, 460 sheets of uncut card papers, and 150 wood blocks for printing cards. Included in the collection are cards from all over the world, including Italy, Germany, Korea, and Iran. In addition to the card collections themselves, other ephemera related to the act of playing card games also belong to the collection, including various rulebooks and a variety of gaming counters. The true value of the collection lies in the wisdom of its principal collector, who desired to amass a collection that reflected in some depth both standard and non-standard cards. As a result, the Cary Collection has close to, if not the, greatest variety of both types of cards.