The “Davy Crockett Adventure Card Game” was published by Ed-U-Cards some time in the 1950s, probably around 1954, when Disney produced a TV miniseries about the politician with the funny hat. The game had two decks of 18 cards each, some with paintings of Crockett’s exploits, others with “Pictures of Davy Crockett based upon his […]

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“Famous Paintings,” published by the Cincinnati Game Company in 1897, offered a variation on the popular “Authors”: the players accumulated four paintings instead of authors. The paintings are reproduced in rather muddy brown, with a dark purple border, and show the artistic taste of the late 19th century. Here, for example, is a painting by […]

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We have another “Jeu de 7 Familles.” Again, there’s no date or publisher, but it has the same box and back as the last example. This deck is devoted to “Cinema”; you see here the grandmother of the camera operator family. Nice jazzy ’60s art, with simplified figures and bold off-register colors. (Posted by Doug […]

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The “Picture-Word Game” was created by Edward W. Dolch, and published by The Garrard Press in 1941. Each card contained a word and its picture on one side, and just the word on the other. The instruction sheet explains that the cards teach “the 95 nouns which careful study has found to be of widest […]

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“Le jeu de 7 familles” (the game of seven families) is a popular French children’s card game. It never caught on in the US, for some reason. The deck contains seven families, each comprising parents, grandparents, son, and daughter. The objective, naturally, is to collect all six of one family. The decks often have a […]

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The “Fun in Flight Deck” was published by United Airlines, probably in the ’70s. It contains 24 cards containing games to keep children occupied on those long flights. One side of the cards has connect-the-dot pictures, which can also be used to play Rummy or Solitaire; the other side offers a variety of mazes, puzzles, […]

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The “Game of Wars” offered players a great deal of information about famous wars, on plain and sturdy cards. My copy came in an equally no-nonsense box, which asserted that the game was “instructive and entertaining,” but no instructions. Nor is there any indication of date or publisher. My guess is that it was played […]

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This curious deck rejoices in the name of “Political Satire Playing Deck 1,” and was published in 1975 by the Spanish company Heraclio Fournier. The drawings are credited to Ortuño. The politicians are an international bunch; shown here is Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who served as Prime Minister of Ceylon and Sri Lanka. Besides playing the usual […]

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We have another “Authors” deck, rather battered, as you can see. It’s incomplete, with no indication of date or publisher. The Winston Churchill pictured here is not the British one who became Prime Minister, but an American writer, who retired in 1919. The deck has an unusual pantheon. In addition to Winston, we have William […]

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The “Kennedy Kards,” published in 1963 by Humor House, depicted members of the Kennedy family on the court cards. Shown here is Sargent Shriver, founder and director of the Peace Corps. Also included were Jack (twice), Joe, Teddy, Bobby, Rose, Joan, Jackie, Ethel, Peter Lawford, and LBJ. I suppose LBJ made the cut because they […]

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