Christmas Parlour Games
I love Christmas. It's my favourite time of the year: a season of kindness and generosity, friendship, laughter and love. It is also the time of the year when I get to indulge in, or reminisce about, traditions of Christmases past.
One of the latter that comes to mind is playing cards on Christmas Day after luncheon with my Grandmother or Mother. Our choice of Christmas parlour card game was always Gin. The game involves picking up and discarding cards, and laying down pairs, trios or quadruples of the same card type (for example two kings or two threes), or a run of three or more cards in a set (for example the ace, king and queen of hearts). The challenge is that once you set down two or three of a card type or a run, your fellow players may add their own remaining matching cards to yours, thus disposing of some of their cards from their hand. The winner is the one who lays down their whole hand of cards, calling out “gin” as they do so.
The theme for "Smile on Saturday" for the 14th of December is "kings and queens", which was actually my suggestion. When the theme was announced, I decided that, as my photostream has taken on a Christmas theme for December, that I would use some of my beautiful Dondorf playing cards, laying out two runs, one of kings and one of queens, against a Christmas wrapping background, with Christmas garland decorations to give it a festive feel. I have quite a number of sets of Dondorf cards, but this set with its amazing graphics ended up being my selection of kings and queens. I hope you like my choice for this week’s theme, and that it makes you smile.
These beautiful “Rokoko” No.158 whist playing cards were made in Germany by the card firm B. Dondorf in 1889, but were sold by the British playing card firm Hamilton, Hills and Company of Paternoster Row, in London. Marketed under their brand of “Unique Playing Cards”, they were sold in a gilt lettered Moroccan leather look cardboard presentation case, which I still have. The illustrator who created these beautiful cards obviously used the same model for the queen of each suite, and possibly the same model for the kings, but the King of Hearts has a decidedly Tsarist look about him that sets him apart from the others. Please also note that the Queen of Hearts has heart charms on her necklace, whilst the Queen of Diamonds wears a diamond choker. Although the court figures are not an accurate reflection of any historical period, this deck has been nicknamed “Rococo”. This pattern was published between 1889 and 1933. The cards printed by chromolithography with gold corners. The backs show honeysuckle on a cream background which was only used in 1889.
The firm of B. Dondorf was founded in April 1833 by the lithographer Bernard Dondorf, who headed the company until July 1872. In that year, Dondorf's sons Carl and Paul, as well as his son in law Jacob Fries, assumed control of the firm which continued to operate under the original trademark. Jacob Fries left the firm in the early part of 1890. From the beginning, the company specialised in all branches of lithography. In cooperation with the printing firm of C. Naumann, Dondorf also printed paper bank notes for the Italian National Bank and for the Imperial Japanese Government. In 1871, the firm moved within Frankfurt from the Saalgasse to a new and larger factory site in the Bockenheimer Landstrasse 136. The steady growth of the company required the building of still additional subdivisions in 1890 and 1895. Principal products of the firm were playing cards, various games, greeting and post cards and various religious prints. The export of playing cards at Dondorf's accounted for much of the firm's business. The Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the period before World War I, for example, imported nearly all of their playing cards from Dondorf. Similarly, the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia were excellent customers. Bernard Dondorf, the founder died in his 94th year. He earned an enviable reputation as a lithographer, especially for his technique of etching the stone with a diamond stylus. His special methods of engraving bank notes were also unique. In 1929 the decision was reached to liquidate the firm.
Christmas Parlour Games
I love Christmas. It's my favourite time of the year: a season of kindness and generosity, friendship, laughter and love. It is also the time of the year when I get to indulge in, or reminisce about, traditions of Christmases past.
One of the latter that comes to mind is playing cards on Christmas Day after luncheon with my Grandmother or Mother. Our choice of Christmas parlour card game was always Gin. The game involves picking up and discarding cards, and laying down pairs, trios or quadruples of the same card type (for example two kings or two threes), or a run of three or more cards in a set (for example the ace, king and queen of hearts). The challenge is that once you set down two or three of a card type or a run, your fellow players may add their own remaining matching cards to yours, thus disposing of some of their cards from their hand. The winner is the one who lays down their whole hand of cards, calling out “gin” as they do so.
The theme for "Smile on Saturday" for the 14th of December is "kings and queens", which was actually my suggestion. When the theme was announced, I decided that, as my photostream has taken on a Christmas theme for December, that I would use some of my beautiful Dondorf playing cards, laying out two runs, one of kings and one of queens, against a Christmas wrapping background, with Christmas garland decorations to give it a festive feel. I have quite a number of sets of Dondorf cards, but this set with its amazing graphics ended up being my selection of kings and queens. I hope you like my choice for this week’s theme, and that it makes you smile.
These beautiful “Rokoko” No.158 whist playing cards were made in Germany by the card firm B. Dondorf in 1889, but were sold by the British playing card firm Hamilton, Hills and Company of Paternoster Row, in London. Marketed under their brand of “Unique Playing Cards”, they were sold in a gilt lettered Moroccan leather look cardboard presentation case, which I still have. The illustrator who created these beautiful cards obviously used the same model for the queen of each suite, and possibly the same model for the kings, but the King of Hearts has a decidedly Tsarist look about him that sets him apart from the others. Please also note that the Queen of Hearts has heart charms on her necklace, whilst the Queen of Diamonds wears a diamond choker. Although the court figures are not an accurate reflection of any historical period, this deck has been nicknamed “Rococo”. This pattern was published between 1889 and 1933. The cards printed by chromolithography with gold corners. The backs show honeysuckle on a cream background which was only used in 1889.
The firm of B. Dondorf was founded in April 1833 by the lithographer Bernard Dondorf, who headed the company until July 1872. In that year, Dondorf's sons Carl and Paul, as well as his son in law Jacob Fries, assumed control of the firm which continued to operate under the original trademark. Jacob Fries left the firm in the early part of 1890. From the beginning, the company specialised in all branches of lithography. In cooperation with the printing firm of C. Naumann, Dondorf also printed paper bank notes for the Italian National Bank and for the Imperial Japanese Government. In 1871, the firm moved within Frankfurt from the Saalgasse to a new and larger factory site in the Bockenheimer Landstrasse 136. The steady growth of the company required the building of still additional subdivisions in 1890 and 1895. Principal products of the firm were playing cards, various games, greeting and post cards and various religious prints. The export of playing cards at Dondorf's accounted for much of the firm's business. The Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway and Sweden in the period before World War I, for example, imported nearly all of their playing cards from Dondorf. Similarly, the Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia were excellent customers. Bernard Dondorf, the founder died in his 94th year. He earned an enviable reputation as a lithographer, especially for his technique of etching the stone with a diamond stylus. His special methods of engraving bank notes were also unique. In 1929 the decision was reached to liquidate the firm.