European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 6, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Offbeat exhibits deck is stacked at japanese 100 author s cards from 1855. These card were made with woodcuts. Playing card museum Story and photos by Joseph Owen Stuttgart Bureau there s More Royalty in the basement of the Grun Schule Leinfelder sued an elementary school in Leinfelder Echter Dingen Germany than in All of Buckingham Palace. That s because the school basement houses the Deutscher Spie Karten museum German playing card museum which claims to be the largest facility of its kind in Europe and the Only one in Germany. The museum located about eight Miles South of Stuttgart in Leinfelder features scores of colourful two dimensional Kings and Queens although their entourage consists of a much larger group whose. Stripes Magazine March 6,1986 faces Are less familiar on card faces. They include Polo players fencers Mountain climbers drunks witches camels tigers and mythological figures engaged in activities ranging from the incomprehensible to the unmentionable. The facility s card collection is much too vast to be displayed appropriately in the two Large rooms the museum occupies so officials prepare a new exhibit about once a year said staff member Marlene Gedenk. The current exhibit opened in december focusing on painted cards from around the world. The exhibit displays Many pieces borrowed from Public and private collections and features a slide and tape show chronicling the evolution of painted and drawn cards. The intricacy and variety of the cards themselves seem to enhance the museum s role As a gallery of Art miniatures. The painting styles Range from classical to modern and the materials used to make them Are almost As diverse. Some cards in the exhibit Are painted Mussel shells or leather circles others Are painted with Gold. The oldest surviving deck of cards is the stut Garter Spiel a 52-card deck painted Between 1427 and 1431 in four suits dogs ducks Falcons and Stags said museum director Margot Dietrich. The 49 cards which still exist belong to the Baden Wuerttemberg Landes museum which has loaned five of the originals to the exhibit. Facsimiles of other cards in the deck accompany them. The first european playing cards appeared in