GREENWICH, CONN. -- When Stuart Kaplan graduated from the Sorbonne and then the Wharton School he thought he knew exactly where his career was heading.

In 1968, Mr Kaplan was working on Wall Street when travel took him to the Nuremberg Toy Fair. There he found a deck of tarot cards. He purchased the deck, brought it home, had it reproduced, and sold 100 of the reproduction decks to Brentano's. Within the year, he sold more than 200,000 decks. An obsession, a hobby and a new career had begun.

Mr Kaplan and his wife, Marilyn, have been Greenwich residents since 1975. They now are the proud owners of one of the world's largest and finest antique playing cards and card game collections. Their collection includes over 1,600 card games dating from the Civil War to the present and more than 700 different playing card decks. In addition, over 3,000 books document the history of playing cards.

"Play Your Cards!" is on view in the Arcade Gallery of the Bruce Museum through February 4. The display encompasses playing cards, card games and related accoutrements, such as turn-of-the-century Tiffany and Gorham sterling silver card holders; wooden and silver trump markers; many original card designs; and an 1880 German cloisonne frame celebrating a hand-colored Ace of Spades manufactured by Jazaniah H. Ford, the first domestic playing card maker in America.

A "tarot" card deck contains 78 cards and is used almost exclusively for fortune telling. Although the Kaplans' collection contains numerous "tarot" card decks, "Play Your Cards!" highlights their "tarock" collection. Mr Kaplan explains that "tarock" probably dates from the Sixteenth Century and became very popular during the Nineteenth Century in Europe. It involves a predetermined trump suit and is played much like whist or bridge, with either 54 or 78 cards comprising a tarock deck.

"The earliest examples of playing cards generally are traced to Fifteenth Century Italy. These hand-painted cards were called `trionfi' and were used by Milanese nobility - the Visconti, the Sforza, the Colleoni - who commissioned some of the earliest decks which we know today as tarot cards," Mr Kaplan said. There are only 271 extant trionfi cards, some of which reside in the Beinecke and Pierpont Morgan libraries.

Card playing quickly spread to France, Germany and other European countries. The earliest American playing cards date from the early Nineteenth Century. Initially, playing cards were not imprinted with indices (the numbers and the alphabetic characters). Indices first appeared in the 1860s, about the time the first joker appeared. The first card deck that features a joker is in the exhibition.

Other items on display include 17 cards from one of the earliest known baseball card series (produced in 1888), Confederate and Union Civil War decks, two decks of Native American playing cards that are hand painted on rawhide, 200 early Nineteenth Century playing cards, 15 Nineteenth Century French gaming compendiums that contain about 30 games and their accoutrements, a handmade Danish game box with two tarock decks and beautifully rendered early Twentieth Century tobacco insert cards.

One extraordinary display features 41 Napoleonic P.O.W. bone boxes made between 1790 and 1814. These handmade containers house dominoes and playing cards. They were fashioned by French sailors held in England as prisoners of war.

Eventually, Mr Kaplan's hobby became his business. He is the founder/CEO of U.S. Games, Inc., a Stamford, Conn., based company that publishes and distributes over 600 different playing card decks and card games. One of U.S. Games Systems' most popular items is "Authors," which originated in 1861. The Kaplans own the original version which was produced by G.M. Whipple & A.A. Smith of Salem, Mass.

"Authors," which retails for $5, is available in the Bruce Museum Store for its original 1861 price of ten cents, or a donation. There is a limit of one game copy per customer.

Mr Kaplan pointed out that "The American History Deck" (illustrated by Douglas Gorsline and featured at the Bruce Museum) contains a technical error. He offered a $100 reward to the first person who recognizes it.

On January 21, Mr Kaplan will lecture on "Cards and Games: Past and Present." He is the author of the exhibit's accompanying catalogue, as well as Tarot Cards for Fun and Fortune Telling!, which has sold over 700,000 copies. That success was followed by Tarot Classic, and the three-volume The Encyclopedia of Tarot. The exhibition catalogue may be purchased in the museum's store.

Bruce Museum is in downtown Greenwich, Conn., two blocks south of the Greenwich Metro North railroad station. The museum is open Saturdays, 10 am to 5 pm, and Sundays, 2 to 5 pm. It is closed Mondays and major holidays. The telephone is 203/869-0376.