The Playing Card Museum is a living museum.

Printing presses are rattling away, the steam engine gets under way. All the machines are ready for production. Printing demonstrations and film clips teach you all about the old printing techniques of the playing card industrie. Turnhout is the playing card centre of the world. It has a long tradition of manufacturing playing card, dating back the 19th Century. The museum's machinery covers this entire period.

Apart from the manufacturing techniques, the playing card itself is in the spotlight as well. The museum has a collection of pieces from the 16th Century untill now. Some of them are so elaborate that they are real works of art. After all, not all decks are made for playing. Some of them are sold as souvenirs, others to tell people's fortune, and yet others are used for advertising. Thereford, the museum focuses mainly on the beauty of the playing card.

In the Middle Ages, the card game was seen as the devil's game for gamblers and swindlers. Fortunately, our jugdment is far more lenient. Playing cards are part of our dailly life. However, the Playing Card Museum shows that they are not as common as you would think at first sight.

Come and see for yourself, and maby you'll come up trumps !