The “Home History Game for Boys and Girls” was issued by Milton Bradley in 1909. It contains 105 cards, printed with events from history. Players try to collect cards from the same day of the week. The choice of historical incidents is idiosyncratic, as the above card shows. Most are from the 19th century, and […]

[Read more →]

This card comes from a small “Matching Pairs” game, sold as a party favor by Unique Industries in Philadelphia. The paired cards show simple objects and animals, drawn in this clear and colorful style. Instructions are included in both English and French. (Posted by Doug Skinner)

[Read more →]

This version of “Authors” was published by Milton Bradley, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. It promises a “Revised Edition with Fine Portraits of Standard Writers.” I welcome the chance to admire Wilkie Collins, who doesn’t often make it into the canon. The others in this set are Shakespeare, Scott, Macaulay, Dickens, […]

[Read more →]

Mrs. Dr. Anna Tomey is part of an old Old Maid deck from Spear’s games. She looks quite elegant and competent, I think. Here’s the Old Maid, who is much the worse for wear. . In fact, the previous owner designated another member of the deck, Miss Idylla Reeding, as the Old Maid, and sketched […]

[Read more →]

I usually post these card games in appreciation of the anonymous artists who designed them. This one is an exception; it’s a 1927 game of “Gasoline Alley,” which I suspect was drawn by Frank King himself. There are four suits of thirteen cards each; I guess you could play any standard card game with them. […]

[Read more →]

George Eliot appears in this old (and unusually large) version of “Authors.” The set I found seems to be complete, but came with no box, so there’s no information on date or publisher. In addition to Eliot, the pantheon here consists of Tennyson, Thackeray, Emerson, Scott, Dickens, Irving, Longfellow, Cooper, Hawthorne, Whittier, Holmes, Shakespeare, and […]

[Read more →]

We have another version of “Authors,” from Fairchild. There’s no date, but I would guess that it’s from the ’40s. Joel Chandler Harris, popular at one time for his black dialect stories, much less popular now, makes a rare appearance in the literary pantheon. His fellow writers are: Cornelia Meigs, Francis William Rolt-Wheeler, Louisa May […]

[Read more →]

Fairchild came out with “Cities” in 1945. Each city formed a three card set, which players competed, no doubt hotly, to complete. The cities were all in the U.S., and each was worth a different number of points: New York City (12), Chicago (11), Philadelphia (10), Detroit (9), Los Angeles (8), Baltimore (7), Cleveland (6), […]

[Read more →]

“Frank Buck’s Bring ‘Em Back Alive Game” was published by Fairchild in 1937. Frank Buck had a long career as an animal collector, with ancillary forays into writing and acting. He collected animals for circuses and zoos, his motto being “bring ’em back alive.” This deck has striking illustrations of animals, to be collected in […]

[Read more →]

“L’Histoire de France Jouée par les Enfants” (The History of France Played by Children) was a “loto historique” that promised “Grands Faits — Petits Résumés” (Great Actions — Short Descriptions”). The one I have is the second part, which covers 1800 (Napoleon crossing the Alps) to 1919 (Foch, Joffre, and Pétain). It was published by […]

[Read more →]