Menko is an old Japanese game, more recently popularized in the west as Pogs.  Players compete to flip over opponents’ cards; each card usually has a picture of a hand as well, to add rock-paper-scissors to the game. I usually like to give just one example, but these are unusual and fun to look at, […]

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The backs of these cards identify them as “The Inka Culture.”  Each card carries some motif from the Andes.  There is no date or publisher on my copy.  I don’t know if the Incan designs are genuine, but they’re bold and stylish. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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“Wizard Problem Solvers,” a 1993 offering from Playmore, provided “36 fun-to-do challenges,” all in this casual cartoony style. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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There were many decks around 1900 that promoted the different states; each card had a different picture, usually black and white photos with pastel overlays.  This Floridian sample offers a handsome razor back hog as Joker.  The backs were quite decorative as well. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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Piatnik, in Vienna, was responsible for this “Black Peter” deck.  Black Peter accompanies St. Nicholas at Christmas; the card game is similar to “Old Maid,” with Peter as the jinx.  He was once represented as an African in colorful silk, but is now usually seen as a chimney sweep.  In this animal themed deck, he’s […]

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Captain Turtle cuts a dashing figure in this early edition of “Old Maid.”  His colleagues include Ching Chang Chung (a Chinese citizen), Billy Bat (a baseball player), 15th Amendment (a freed slave), Dicky Fop (a fashion plate), Fast Horse (a boy on a rocking horse), and Corporal March (a soldier). The Old Maid is, atypically, […]

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Girtie Giggle is featured in the 1935 Russell edition of “Slap Jack.”  The players are instructed to giggle when her portrait appears.  Likewise, Willie Whistle is to be met with whistling, Hi Sing with singing, and Slap Jack with slapping.  Card playing need not be quiet.  And the design, and two-color printing, are pretty snappy. […]

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William Dean Howells was admitted into the canon for the Parker Brothers 1897 edition of “Authors.”  He wasn’t in some of the later versions; tastes change.  His fellow authors this time around were James Russell Lowell, Robert Burns, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Greenleaf Whittier, William Shakespeare, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Victor Hugo, Sir […]

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This isolated card is from an early “Authors” deck.  Most later versions were less generous with the engraving; and Cooper didn’t always survive revisions to the canon. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

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We’ll have a few examples of “Authors,” that curious game about collecting writers.  This one has no indication of date or publisher.  The canon is conventional: Scott, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Hawthorne, Whittier, Poe, Tennyson, Dickens, Stevenson, Irving, and Emerson.  Shakespeare is rather plump and peevish in this version, and his hair is curlier than I remember.  […]

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