I was rooting around on my external hard drive again, and I found this old German book in my Emblem Book folder. I had downloaded it and filed it away without any proper examination. It turns out to be a card game of some sort.
http://diglib.hab.de/drucke/tg-117/start.htm
Title is - " Eine nützliche Spiel-Karte für die Flucher: Und nützliche Fluch-Karte für die Spieler "
online translation - " A useful card for the game had cursed: and useful curse card for the players " (sic)
Perhaps it means 'A Useful Card Game For The Curser And A Useful Curse-Card For The Player'
I love the Fraktur typeface, and I sure do wish I had paid attention to my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade german teachers!
Johannes Praetorius 1630-1680 (226 pg) printed in Nürnberg : Hoffmann, 1671
- I wonder how this book was used. Were the pages supposed to be cut out and pasted on board ? Did the book accompany a real deck, Like the 'Pictorial Key to the Tarot', and the Waite-smith ?
- 4 suits: Leaves, Acorns, Hearts, and Bells The number of the card is at top, and an equal number of suit icons are in a line afterward, instead of being distributed in a pattern across the card/page area. There appear to be 4 court cards (Der konig, Der Ober, Der Unter, and Das Daus). Pips are numbered 6-10.
I found a german wkipedia article explaining it. It's a style of deck called 'Deutsches Blatt' or 'German Journal' or 'German Newspaper'.
German http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_ ... ches_Blatt
English http://translate.googleusercontent.com/ ... ches_Blatt
After reading the broken Google Translation, the way I understand it is that the court cards are King, Over, Under, and Deuce. Ober has the word 'Dame' after it in parenthesis. 'Unter' has the word 'bauer' after it, and that means farmer. The 'Daus' is said to represent a pig. So it must go King, Queen, Farmer, and Pig !
- Very very weird book/card deck/whatever. Something bad is happening in almost every picture. In this one below, a person is being boiled alive in a big pot, and someone else is lighting a row of houses on fire. Not your standard Tarot deck. I hope this is supposed to be a funny game !
Weird Old German Book and 17th Century Teaching Card Games
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Last edited by hoo on 20 Jan 2011, 03:09, edited 1 time in total.
Deliver me from reasons why you'd rather cry - I'd rather fly...
Jim Morrison - The Crystal Ship
Jim Morrison - The Crystal Ship