Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne (Piatnik) (Q1297)
Vienna (1884–1890), VII, Kandlgasse 33; N: Freisingergasse 6, bei Ludwig Nowotny Kärnthnerstr. 48, bei Franz Huber
Vienna (1891–1891), VII, Kandlgasse 33; N: Freisingergasse 6
Vienna (1892–1892), F: XIII, Hütteldorferstraße; N: VII, Kaiserstr. 56
Vienna (1893–1896), F und C: XIII/4, Hütteldorferstr. 1; N: I, Freisingergasse 6 VII, Kaiserstr. 56
Vienna (1897–1902), F und C: XIII/4, Hütteldorferstr. 205; N: I, Freisingergasse 6 VII, Kaiserstr. 56
Vienna (1903–1912), F: XIII, Hütteldorferstr. 227; N: I, Freisingergasse 4 VII, Kaiserstr. 56
Vienna (1913–1914), F: XIII, Hütteldorferstr. 227-231; N: I, Freisingergasse 4 VII, Kaiserstr. 56 V, Schloßgasse 16
Prague (1940–1945), Kartenmacher
- Kaplan: The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. II (1986)
- Segeth: Spielkarten (Battenberg, 1986)
- Braun/Link: Die Altenburger Kriegsspielkarten im 1. Weltkrieg (Spielkarten Bd. 1, 1988)
- Wiener Kartenmacher des 19. Jahrhunderts (1990)
- Radau/Himmelheber: Spielkarten (BNM vol. 21, 1991)
- Jánoska/Braun: Die Spielkartenfabrik Piatnik in Budapest und ihre Nachfolger (Spielkarten Bd. 5, 1992)
- Denning: The Playing-Cards of Spain (1996)
- Knüpfer: Vom Baltikum zum Balkan (Spielkarten Bd. 16, 2004)
- Wolfgang Altfahrt, mpcia.at
- Nachdruck: Zum 100-jährigen Bestande der Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik und Söhne A.G. (Talon 2/1993)
- Die Datierung eines französischen Transformationsspieles (Talon 3/1994)
- Graz ‘95 - Rückblick/Grazer Tarock (Talon 4/1995)
- Anzeige: Spielkarten-Editionen von Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne (Talon 6/1997)
- Die „Spielcouverts“ der Firmen Josef Glanz und Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne aus dem Jahr 1903 (Talon 8/1999)
- Ergänzung zu „Tarocke, Kulturgeschichte auf Kartenbildern“ (Talon 8/1999)
- Mohren-Deutsche (Talon 9/2000)
- Conrad von Hötzendorf und Paul von Hindenburg „gestatten die Anbringung ihrer Bildnisse auf Tarockkarten“ (Talon 10/2001)
- Ein handgezeichnetes Kartenspiel aus dem 1. Weltkrieg (Talon 11/2002)
- Wie der MARTL den Feldmarschall Radetzky und den WELI bezwang – wenn das die Kartenspieler wüssten! (Talon 11/2002)
- Die Kunst von Leó Kóber - eine Lebensskizze (Talon 12/2003)
- Kritisch Watten - immer noch in Bayern! (Talon 12/2003)
- Solcherne - Türkenbelagerung - altes Geld (Talon 12/2003)
- Neuerscheinung: “Herz-Schelle-Laub-Eichel” (Talon 13/2004)
- Triester Dichterspiele (‘mazzi degli scrittori’) (Talon 13/2004)
- Neuerscheinung: Michael Dummett und John McLeod “A History of Games Played with the Tarot Pack” (Talon 14/2005)
- Spielkarten aus Alt-Tirol, Teil 4 (Talon 16/2007)
- zu Neuerscheinung von Kurt Doleysch und Hans Kunz, Wien "Das Großtarockuch, vom XXer-Rufen zum Großtarock Modern und Trischaken" (Talon 16/2007)
- Moderne Spielkarten mit Deutschen und Schweizer Farbzeichen in Österreich und Südtirol (Talon 17/2008)
- Neues vom Spielkarten-WELI (Talon 17/2008)
- Vorstellung der letzten zwei Werke von Klaus Reisinger: Trappola - das alte Kartenspiel mit italienischen Farben Fabriksmarken von Spielkarten-Fabrikanten (Talon 17/2008)
- Spielkarten aus Alt-Tirol, Teil 5: Fragmente und Nachträge (Talon 18/2009)
- Nachtrag zum Artikel "Moderne Spielkarten mit Deutschen und Schweizer Farbzeichen in Österreich und Südtirol" (Talon 19/2010)
- Spielkarten aus dem Volkskundehaus Ried im Innkreis, Oberösterreich (Talon 19/2010)
- Spielkarten mit zweifachen Farbzeichen in Österreich und Umgebung (Talon 19/2010)
- Spielkarten-Nachträge (Talon 20/2011)
- Es war einmal ... eine Spielkartenfabrik in Budapest (Talon 21/22/2013)
- Moderne Spielkarten und Kartenmaler in Ungarn (Talon 21/22/2013)
- Das Drei-Kaiser-Treffen-Tarock (Talon 24/25/2015)
- Spielkarten von "Mirakel" (Talon 24/25/2015)
- Krakowska Fabrika Kart Do Gry - Musterbücher im Vergleich (auch in gedruckter Form erhältlich, z. B. bei CARTORAMA) (Talon 28/2019)
- Markenzeichen in Österreich/Ungarn bzw. Österreich Seitenfüller: Die traurigen Folgen des neuen Spielkarten-Monopols (Talon 28/2019)
- Sonderbares Tarock 435 - Was wurde hier gespielt? (Talon 28/2019)
- Neues zum österreichischen Spielkarten-Steuerstempel, Teil 7: Zur Praxis des Spielkarten-Stempelgesetzes an 1881, im Speziellen: "Wurden Kinderkarten besteuert?" (Talon 29/2020)
- Nicht bei Klaus Reisinger (Talon 30/2021)
- Selten publizierte Spielkarten. Nicht bei Klaus Reisinger (Talon 32/2023)
- Spielkarten Verpackung des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel von Piatnik (Talon 32/2023)
- „Ganz neue Schweizer Whist Karten“ oder: Wer hat wen kopiert? (Talon 32/2023)
- Kaplan: The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Vol. II (1986)
- Segeth: Spielkarten (Battenberg, 1986)
- Braun/Link: Die Altenburger Kriegsspielkarten im 1. Weltkrieg (Spielkarten Bd. 1, 1988)
- Wiener Kartenmacher des 19. Jahrhunderts (1990)
- Jánoska/Braun: Die Spielkartenfabrik Piatnik in Budapest und ihre Nachfolger (Spielkarten Bd. 5, 1992)
- Denning: The Playing-Cards of Spain (1996)
Of the old Viennese playing-card factories, only this one is still working today. Ferdinand de Cassan states dryly in the company history that Piatnik was "the only one of the named producers from Vienna to survive" (p. 62). The firm counts its beginning from 14 May 1824, the founding day of the Viennese card-painting workshop that Ferdinand Piatnik took over eighteen years later. Today around 25 million packs of cards leave the house each year, plus around a million puzzles and parlour pastimes each; sales reach more than 60 countries. Over the decades the name has become a generic term in Central Europe — in a Hungarian stationer's, customers did not ask for tarot cards but for "Piatnik tarock".
The following account follows the company history 180 Jahre Piatnik [180 Years of Piatnik], ed. Dieter Strehl, Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne, Vienna 2004. It is a source with its own point of view: the house tells its own story. Where our data differs from it, this is noted below at the relevant point.
From journeyman card painter to master craftsman (1819–1843)
The founder came from Ofen and was a trained card painter. Ferdinand Piatnik was born on 14 October 1819 in Ofen, today part of Buda in Budapest, and on 17 May 1835 was apprenticed to the local playing-card maker Johann Gravatz. His journeyman's certificate attests that he had conducted himself "faithfully, diligently and virtuously"; on 17 January 1839 the guild card painters of the coronation city of Pressburg recognised him as a journeyman (p. 11).
In Vienna he joined the workshop of the card painter Anton Moser — the card-painting workshop founded on 14 May 1824 in the 7th district, from which the firm derives its founding year. When Moser died in 1842, Piatnik took over the business and, as guild custom required, married the widow. On 30 January 1843 the Schotten abbey lordship granted him the trade licence — on condition "that he immediately register for income tax, pay his taxes punctually, not exceed the bounds of his trade licence, and, on pain of forfeiture at the first offence, not lease it out" (deed of grant, quoted p. 11).
The company name reveals how long the predecessor's influence lasted. At first the business was called "Ferd. Piatnik vormals Anton Moser" [Ferd. Piatnik, formerly Anton Moser]; only around the mid-1840s did it become "Ferdinand Piatnik in Wien" (p. 11). The second marriage, to Johanna Rauchenegger, produced the three sons Ferdinand, Adolf and Rudolf, who all later worked in the firm.
From workshop to factory (1862–1891)
In 1862 the business moved to Schottenfeld No. 153, later Kaiserstraße 56, where a four-storey new building was erected in 1880. The world exhibitions of 1873 in Vienna and 1878 in Paris brought awards (pp. 11–12). In 1882 the sons Ferdinand and Adolf joined, and the house traded from then on as Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne. The founder died in 1885; his widow Johanna carried on with the sons until she withdrew in 1890 and the third brother, Rudolf, took her place (p. 12).
The shift from craft to machine forced a move. Card painting could not be converted to mechanised production in the old house, so in 1891 the business relocated to the then suburb of Baumgarten on Hütteldorfer Straße — where the firm is still based today. The company history describes the initial conditions without embellishment: a "factory out in the country" with no water, gas or electricity and no good transport connection (p. 12). The same year saw the arrival of the pictorial trademark the house still carries today: the horse and rider, called the "jockey on horseback" in the company history.
Note on the data: The company history jumps straight from Hütteldorfer Straße 1 to number 227 from 1903. Our address series knows of a further stage in between — number 205 in the years 1897 to 1902. The street's house numbers were reassigned several times, so the figures contradict each other only apparently, not really.
An empire of playing cards (1896–1914)
Within barely twenty years Piatnik bought up the competition across half the monarchy. It began in 1896 with the Erste Ungarische Spielkartenfabriks Aktiengesellschaft in Budapest, which was available after a bankruptcy: the purchase contract of 15 September 1896 names 30,913 forints and 33 kreuzer, the larger part of which went to the creditor bank. The business continued as Piatnik Nándor és Fiai — Nándor being the Hungarian form of Ferdinand, and the company's founder had been born in that city (pp. 15–16).
In Vienna, 1897 saw the start of the gradual takeover of the Spielkartenfabrik Josef Glanz, founded in 1825 by Johann Gabriel Uffenheimer in Guntramsdorf and taken over by Josef Glanz in 1849. Its last owner, Karl Abrahamsberg, was childless and opted to work with his former competitor; the business passed over for good in 1912. Via Glanz, Piatnik acquired the Prague factory Ritter & Cie. in 1898, the Österreichische Spielkartenfabriksgesellschaft in Vienna and the Spielkartenfabrik Vannak in Budapest in 1904 (p. 12).
In Budapest the buying continued until there was nothing left to buy there: in 1899 a majority stake in the Neue Kartenfabrik Spitzer (complete by 1902), in 1906 the factory of János Várady Rády Vannak, in 1909 the Unio-Spielkartenfabrik of Henrik Fischer. After that, Piatnik was the only maker of playing cards left in the whole of Hungary (p. 18).
The house also secured its raw material. In 1907 it bought the paper mill in Lower Styrian Ratschach — today Radeče in Slovenia — modernised it and incorporated it as "Gebrüder Piatnik, Dokumenten- und Kartenpapier-Fabrik" [Piatnik Brothers, Document and Card Paper Factory]. A book and lithographic printing works had already been added in 1903 (p. 12). By around 1912 the group spanned Vienna, Budapest and Prague; a factory in Kraków was added in 1926.
What two wars left behind (1917–1945)
The political ruptures hit the firm harder than any competitor could. In 1917 the Viennese company was converted into a family joint-stock company. When Czechoslovakia came into being after the First World War and placed an import ban on foreign playing cards, an entire market threatened to fall away; only Piatnik, Ritter & Cie., newly founded in Prague in 1923, kept it open (p. 13).
In 1939 the Viennese parent house received the name it still carries today: the joint-stock company became the Familien-Kommanditgesellschaft Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne [Family limited partnership Vienna Playing-Card Factory Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne], run exclusively by grandchildren of the founder. In 1944 the works in Ratschach and Budapest were partly destroyed; in 1945 the family lost control of all factories outside Austria by stages — up to complete expropriation (p. 13). The Budapest plant was nationalised in December 1949; the owners left the country, and the printing works continued as a state enterprise in Rottenbiller utca until 1983 (p. 20).
The Viennese firm since 1945
What remained was Vienna — and from there the firm rebuilt its exports. 1951 brought multi-colour offset printing, and in 1962 the factory site was extended. 1958/59 saw the start of the firm's own line of pastimes with the "Jockey" card packs, and in the sixties parlour pastimes and puzzles were added (pp. 13, 62). Our data records the firm's present legal form, Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne GmbH & Co KG, from 1979 — the company history does not mention this step and speaks throughout of the limited partnership of 1939.
After 1989 the firm returned to the countries from which it had been driven out. 1989 saw the creation of Piatnik of America, 1993 Piatnik Deutschland GmbH in Mönchengladbach, and 1994 Piatnik Praha and Piatnik Budapest. The company history expressly reads this as the restoration of a state of affairs that had already existed around 1900 (p. 13). This period also produced the parlour pastimes for which Piatnik is known today outside the world of cards, above all Activity.
The William Tell suit and the vanished apple shot
The German-suited pattern most common in Austria today owes its form to an accident of packaging size. The William Tell suit, usually called "Doppeldeutsche" [double-German], goes back to cards made around 1835 by the Pest card painters József Schneider and Ödön Chwalowsky; from the 1860s every Austrian and Hungarian factory carried it. The dramatic scene of the apple shot sat on the Hearts Six, because that was where the most space was available among the few suit marks. When the pack was reduced from 36 to 32 cards in the mid-19th century, the sixes were dropped — and with them the picture that gave the pattern its name (p. 18).
Where this account comes from
The information follows the company history 180 Jahre Piatnik (Vienna 2004) — recorded in the wiki as a work under 180 Jahre Piatnik —, in particular the contributions Die Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne (pp. 11–13) and Antal Jánoska, Piatnik Nándor és Fiai (pp. 15–21). Readers who prefer the company history as relationships rather than sentences will find it in the family tree of makers further down this page: predecessors above, successors below, each with the year of transition.
The Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne sponsors this wiki; see Förderer. The sponsorship has no influence on the content of this page — it rests on the source named above and, like every page here, can be corrected.
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