Qantas playing cards

Packet of Qantas playing cards consisting of the four suits, three jokers and a blank card printed with the maker’s name ‘Ferd. Piatnik and Sons Vienna’. Printed on the ace of spades is ‘MADE IN AUSTRIA’. The cardboard packet and back of the playing cards features a stylised image of a queen and king holding suitcases and the words 'QANTAS AUSTRALIA'S OVERSEAS AIRLINE'.

This packet of playing cards is an example of those distributed on Qantas military charter flights which ferried Australian troops between Sydney and Saigon during the Vietnam War. From 1965 to 1972 Qantas’s Boeing 707 aircraft were regularly used to supplement the Royal Australian Air Force’s transport force and it is estimated that approximately half of all Australian defence personnel deployed to Vietnam were transported there by Qantas.