top of page
Search


Yankee Notions
We have previously posted about Quintract Bridge (with five suits) and the Liechtenstein Pattern (also with five suits). Now it is the turn of Yankee Notions, an American original. Four new suits—Stars, Eagles, Flags and Crests—providing an American Nativist aura to the set, with a Faces suit providing trump duties (perhaps inspired by the Tarock decks). There were no court cards: there was a Zero, or Z card at the apex of each suit.  16 new or adapted games were described

Newt
Nov 256 min read
Â
Â
Â


The Liechtenstein Five Suit Pattern
We mentioned in a previous post the mayfly life of the 1938 five suit bridge suits —Leaves, Crowns, Castles, & Eagle—that seem to have vanished as quickly as it arrived, lost to all but collectors. The reason for settling on 4 suits in card packs has been variously attributed to the number of the season (the four corners of the earths orbit), the four temperaments, the four elements to name a few. But on the way to four-suit modernity there were as many as 9 suits (in EG Ganj

Newt
Nov 242 min read
Â
Â
Â


Quintract, or 5-Suit Bridge: a rediscovered experiment
"What will replace bridge" was a question that was constantly asked in the early 20th century, having evolved from Whist in Constantinople in the 1860s, and after being picked up along with cigarettes by the British in the Crimean war, arrived in the London clubs at the turn of the 19th century. * Answers included variously Reym (post here ), Grand, Manx, Ba-ka-lee, Tout-a-tout, and Buccaneer to name only a few. Various rules for scoring and bidding had come and gone in th

Newt
Nov 2118 min read
Â
Â
Â
bottom of page
