Baller’s Playing Cards

This page is all about me, and my fascination with playing cards,
so I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself - my name is Balázs Pál Nagy.
I was born in 1963 in Hajdúböszörmény, Hungary to an art loving and art creating family. My grandfather made his living
as a well-known artist (favored medium – oil painting) in Hungary. My father is a retired art teacher and a still active
artist also (favored medium – water colour painting). You are welcome to visit their web gallery at
· www.3palnagy.com ·
My sister also busies herself along the same lines working with the web and decorating. She also helps me
with translations and techniqual matters regarding my web site. Her works can be visited at
· www.graphildic.com ·

Originally I studied to become a teacher, majoring in math and art. After receiving my teaching diploma I ventured
into a new and exciting field to me, which was animation. In this field in the next 18 years I worked on short and long
animation movies, marketing campaign films, educational films, Hungarian TV-series and international film projects.
My occupation ranged from animator to director and storyboard writer, and later I became a teacher
in the trade of animation in Kecskemét and Nyíregyháza, Hungary.

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I can clearly remember even in my early years of childhood I loved to play cards, and during my years in college
I worked on graphic designs using several printmaking techniques. I only truly discovered my deep affection for playing
cards in 1988, when I started to collect them for their wonderfully artistic illustrations. My interest narrowed in
on the national / regional standard decks - new, old and reprinted editions.
Since then, I was playing with the idea of designing and constructing my own decks and creating other card related art works.
It took me a long time to research the trade, history, tradition, ethnicity and customs of cards,
and because of this I only began work on my own designs 3 years ago.

These works of mine were made with silkscreen techniques at the beginning,
then I started to craft blockprinted and silkscreen coloured cards. In 2003 with the help of a great friend
in the printing business my first offset-printed cards were born. The card face designs of these packs were
hand drawn illustrations and for the pre-press and press segments of the work
I applied modern and professional techniques.

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Presently I am still in the process of creating some offset printed decks, but in the future I will
strictly take on the task of designing, constructing and manufacturing purely handmade playing cards. I am trying
to rekindle old traditional practices - like blockprinting (wood engraving and lino cutting) techniques, and also planning
on reintroducing the intaglio printing (first copper etching) technique.
For colouring I use stencil or silkscreen colouring - which is a direct descendant of the stencil.
The three-ply pasteboard sheets are glued by hand - just like the custom made boxes and leather bound sample books,
which are also strictly handmade. Right now I am in the study faze of paper marbling, which I plan to use
for the backs of some of my future decks.

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For the cutting and carving of my printing blocks I use Speedball linocutters (modified to my taste),
Pfeil gouges and chisels and E.C. Lyons engraving tools. For the inking of the plates I use custom made,
historically true brayers, which are made by traditional formulas of natural animal skin glue and glycerin.
The inks and paints are professional quality materials: Daniel Smith and Graphic Chemicals oil-based relief inks,
Speedball water soluble screen printing inks and paints and Pannoncolor aquarelles.
For the printing, gluing and pressing I use proudly collected 100-120 year old machines of the trade.
The items under No. 4401-4404 are on Fabriano creative paper sheets. All of the other handmade cards
are printed on - and sandwiched with - Fedrigoni acid-free quality papers. The 330 g/m² factory-made cardboard sheets
used for the offset-printed decks are manufactured by Arjo Wiggins.

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The making of these playing cards is not my day job.
I do not make my living off of it and I do not want to get rich off of it - strange it might sound.
Every week I go to work to teach the next generation of animators and graphic designers in a well-known art school
in Kecskemét, Hungary. Working on my playing cards is strictly something I do in my free time.

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Lately I decided to have my works available to fellow collectors. I anticipate with this web gallery the viewing
and even owning my cards will give you - the visitor great enjoyment and amusement.
So, this site is especially designed for serious collectors for the purpose of visiting, and purchasing limited and
numbered editions of playing card decks and other card art.

I hope through the income from purchases on this site I will be able to further more my workshop
collection of old equipments of the trade. I plan to buy more cutting, carving and engraving tools, woodblocks,
natural sharpening stones, quality papers, inks and paints, old presses, paper cutting machines,
and other traditional quality tools and materials for my future projects.
This inspires me, and you - the collector will benefit from it, since I have a lot of ideas to bring to live.
These new ventures soon will be part of the “projects” link on this site
to enthuse all of my visitors.

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Enjoy your browsing,
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· · · Balázs Pál Nagy · · ·
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designer and manufacturer
playing card collector, member of The International Playing Card Society since 1996

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