Naipes Comas is the oldest card manufacturer in Spain. It was created in 1797, when the business was established by Pedro Comas in Mataró, Province of Barcelona. In 1810, the production moved to Barcelona.
Comas has always been pioneer in its sector. Around 1850, the company developed its own gaming card box and the first ones were exported to Argentina. The range of products includes, among others, the cards with typical Spanish series, known as “baraja”. Poker, bridge and cards of the most famous Catalonian cities are also included in the portfolio of products.
Tarot de Dalí (Dali Tarot) is a very special product, and Cartamundi has acquired the distribution and copyright. Albert Broccoli, producer of the first 16 James Bond movies, asked Dalí to design tarot cards for the movie "Live and Let Die" published in 1973. This way, it was created a unique tarot card collection with 78 drawings.
“This acquisition strenghens our position in the Spanish market: since 2002, Cartamundi has had a sales office in Barcelona. However, we did not have the traditional Spanish cards, that are important to achieve a revolution in Spain”, said Chris Van Doorslaer, Cartamundi consultant.
The card prodution from Comas and Dalí tarot will be transferred to Turnhout. Cartamundi was established in 1970 as a joint venture that combines the activities of card games from Brepols, Van Genechten and Biermans and so it may take advantage of the 200 years of experience in the production and sale of card games. The central office of Cartamundi is located in Turnhout, Belgium.
In 2009, the group had sales for 123 million euros, with 1,000 employees and factories in Belgium, Germany, UK, Poland, US, Brazil, Mexico and its own offices in The Netherlands, France, Spain, Sweden, Hungary, Chile and Singapore.