We have posted elsewhere about a quite remarkable Americana game, Bishops Whist, invented by Alphaeus T Dana in the 1890s. His book on the game began with an essay that filled half the pages, so we have decided to include it in its entirety hereunder: Dana's Essay (Mostly Historical) Wherein We Discern an Historical Apology for the Rankings in Bishops Whist In Charlemagnes day, a period in history wherein we behold the feudal system in the zenith of its strength, the gulf whi

Bishops Whist is a lost piece of Americana that reconsidered the nature of court cards and rationalised them. This is our Bishops Whist deck: The Bishops Whist cards The invention of one Alpheus T. Dana, it removed Ace,10, Jack, and added Knight, Bishop and Castle. With the King and Queen, it is the complement of the ranking chess pieces. A particularly novel aspect of the deck is that the knight cards are "pipless", that is, they don't belong to a suit. There are no survivin

In 1929, Harry S. Abell of McLean, Virginia, patented an extraordinary card game to be played in 3 dimensions. He called it Allez...