Note 164 — Chapter III · THE PROGRESS OF CARD-PLAYING.
Reading edition
The Netherlands seem to have been famed at an early period for the manufacture of cards. Albert Durer, in the journal which he kept during his visit to those parts in 1521, notes that he bought half a dozen packs for seven stivers: "Item hab umb ein halb dutzet Niederländischer Karten geben 7 Stüber."—Albrecht Dürers Reisejournal, in Von Murr's Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 7ter Theil, s. 96. From a passage in Ascham's Toxophilos, 1545, quoted by Singer, it would appear that the price of cards was then about twopence a pack: "He sayd a payre of cards cost not past ii.d."