Ferdinand Piatnik

In 1824 Anton Moser founded a card painting business and set up shop in the 14th district of Vienna. When Moser died in 1843, a bright young employee by the name of Ferdinand Piatnik took the reigns of the business and continued its success.

Ferdinand had the providential good fortune of marrying Moser’s widow, and together they had three sons; Ferdinand, Adolf and Rudolf. In 1882 the three sons formally joined the business, which from then on traded as 'Ferd. Piatnik & Sons'.

In the course of the 19th century, what Anton Moser had started as traditional craft shop in a Viennese district, Ferdinand and his sons slowly built into a sophisticated industrial scale enterprise.

In 1885 Ferdinand died leaving the successful business to his sons and wife. Ever since, the art of card manufacturing has been handed down from generation to generation. In their hundred and seventy five years or so of operation, Piatnik have both preserved and refined their arts of paper manufacturing and image production to produce playing cards that are reputed the world over.