National Museum of Playing Cards

The National Museum of Playing Cards — Nationaal Museum van de Speelkaart — sits in Turnhout, a city in the Antwerp province of northern Belgium, and is entirely dedicated to the history of playing cards. Founded in 1965, the museum has occupied a beautifully restored former card factory since 1988, a fitting home given that Turnhout has been one of Europe's key centers of playing card production for well over a century.

Why Turnhout?

Since the 19th century, Turnhout's factories printed and exported playing cards across the continent and beyond, turning the city into a genuine industrial hub for the craft. The museum keeps that legacy alive, tracing production from hand-painted early cards to mechanized offset and lithographic printing.

What's on display

The permanent collection spans more than 400 years of playing card history, drawing mainly on material from Belgium and the Netherlands alongside examples from other parts of the world. Among the standout pieces is an original 1567 deck featuring elaborately rendered dragon motifs, along with a 1743 printing of Edmond Hoyle's treatise on the game of whist — one of the earliest written rulebooks for a card game.

A major part of the visit revolves around the museum's collection of historical printing machinery: lithographic and offset presses, some dating back to the 1800s, many still hand-cranked or flywheel-powered. A large number of these machines remain fully operational, and the museum regularly puts them to work, walking visitors through the entire process of making a card — from design and printing to finishing and polishing.

Live demonstrations

Twice a month, the museum runs live demonstrations of its historic presses in action, including a roaring 19th-century steam-powered printing press. It's a rare chance to see, up close, how cards were once produced when every sheet passed through a printer's hands rather than an automated line. For many visitors, this is the highlight of the trip — the noise, the smell of printing ink, and the rhythmic turning of the flywheels pull you straight into another era.

A global collection

While the core of the collection centers on cards from the Low Countries, the museum also presents examples from other regions, illustrating how different cultures shaped the look and symbolism of playing cards — from court figures and suit colors to deck formats. The exhibition also explains where today's familiar card designs came from and how they evolved over the centuries under the influence of fashion, printing technology, and local traditions.

Frequently asked questions

Where exactly is the museum located? In Turnhout, in the Antwerp province of northern Belgium, inside a former playing card factory.

How far back does the collection go? The exhibits cover more than 400 years of history, from the 16th century to the present day.

Can visitors see the machines actually working? Yes — twice a month the museum runs demonstrations of its historic printing presses, including a steam-powered machine.

Is the collection limited to Belgian cards? No — while the core of the collection is from Belgium and the Netherlands, examples from other parts of the world are also on display.