Dictators: Crompton's American Fifth Suit
Updated: Jul 24
This is our version of the splendid design for Frederick Crompton's American Fifth Suit:
Invented in 1933, but not realised until the height of the 5-suit bridge craze in 1938, Dictators* was a game that combined elements of Auction Whist (auctioning, nominated trumps, contracts), Tarock (permanent trumps in the form of Atout cards), and Skat (the Widow Card). He seems (from the documentation) to have called his fifth suit Dictators.
The rules are similar to the later 5-suit games, but the addition of a double trump seems original, and makes for a more advanced play than the others.
The fifth suit had the four other pip symbols in a cluster in their original colours. From a news article featuring a conversation with the inventor, we have:
The fifth suit is composed of 13 cards, each of which has all the four suits upon it-hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades, in large and in small "clusters." The face cards are the same as the ordinary ones except for the addition of the small groups of all the suits.
The patent showed the design of the cards in black and white, and didn't show the court cards at all. Here are the patent drawings and our reconstructions:
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You will see how we have (following the system we adopted for the Motley suit) bifurcated colours: here is a closeup of the Ace of Dictators:
We have used our standard Laxum French pattern to enable the cards to be mixed with our other 5- and 6-suit packs.
We will now discuss the original nature of the game, but if you want to go right ahead and buy a pack, and play the Game of Dictators, you can buy a pack printed on demand at Make Playing Cards here.
Crompton and his Fifth Suit
When the Fifth Suit craze hit the USA in 1938, Crompton pointed out to his local paper, The Daily Item of Lynn, Massachusetts, that he had patented the exact thing in 1933**, and with their help, organised to hold exhibition nights at social clubs over the subsequent months. He seems to have begun manufacturing them in small batches to sell to the "sporting world".
It is hard to untangle what comes first in the history of card games, and this isn't helped by the need for publicity and the avoidance of royalties. We know Marseille invented his 5-suit bridge in the later thirties, and we have Ammiel Decker co-copyrighting the Castle bridge in March of 1934 with George Holrock, (and again in 1938 without Holrock, who likely was the noted commercial artist George Hollrock mispelled).
So Crompton patenting it in April of 1933 certainly gives him a plausible claim to being an originator. But there is a precedent with Yankee notions and their 5th trump suit, and Zetema with their doubled Hearts as a 5th suit.
Gathering together available information, what emerges is an enthralling trick-taking game with twists in strategy and probability; a game of two kinds of trump suits, and a hidden Widow card accessed by the winner. We present the reconstructed rules below.
From the Daily Item of 9th March 1938, we get this description of the game:
The fifth suit consists of playing cards, including an ace, a two, three, four, up through the face cards. Each of these "5th suit" cards is marked with all four suits, clubs, spades. diamonds and hearts. There is bidding between the players. four in number.
The players have 16 cards each. The extra card goes to the player making the highest bid and the recipient may discard his or her weakest card.
In an article from the following day, entitled "Played Whist with a Deck of Five Full Suits" we have:
Option of Last Card.
After bidding, the side making the highest bid has the option of taking the 65th. or last card. If he takes it, he discards his weakest card in his hand of 16. At regular contract 13 cards are used by each of the four. In this American Fifth players.
Suit, they have an additional three each.
On the 10th, the Daily Item continues:
New Card Game Invented Here Has Five Suits
Novel Game, Patented By Lynn Man in 1933, to Be Played at Ionic Clubhouse. Frederick Crompton, 12 Paine road, Marblehead, who is employed at Pitman's. 711 Broad street, has invented a new card game with an additional known as the "fifth suit." : The inventor is considering, a possible name for the American Fifth Suit.' Nothing definite has been done to establish the name. The game will be played for the first time at the Ionic club, Swampscott. tonight. with Mr. Crompton and Frederick S. Hall of the club, directing. It will be Ladies' Night at the club, and plans are being made today to have some of the women who are good card players, try their hand at the new game. The game is not "royals," a game said to be making progress in America after coming from England. Mr. Crompton WAS granted United States patent in his game (No. 91,004) in April, 1933.
Puts Premium On Skill.
He has made up several decks of cards and a new deck that will be played tonight at the Ionic club. The Inventor explained today: "This new game. will develop more premium on skill and less on chance. Those who have listened to explanations of it seem to feel it will become popular immediately."
The fifth suit consists of playing cards, including an ace, a two, three, four, up through the face cards. Each of these "5th suit" cards is marked with all four suits, clubs, spades. diamonds and hearts. There is bidding between the players. four in number.
The players have 16 cards each. The extra card goes to the making the highest bid and the recipient may discard his or her weakest card. Then the game goes on. The rules are not complicated and the inventor feels public reaction will be favorable.
The article also has a picture of the highest possible hand, the top 9 of his suit and the other four aces:
We read about them going into production in The Daily Item of 02 Sept 1938:
"Five suit playing cards," are being printed by a Lynn printing firm for Frederick Crompton, 12 Paine Road Marblehead, a Lynn business man with offices at 711 Broad street and a new one at 7 Central square, and who was granted a patent on his five-suit cards, Nov. 7. 1933
Production got under way this week and will continue until such time as the demand will necessitate expansion.
After printing. the fifth suit is added to the regular deck and then wrapped in cellophane.
The decks two in number-one red and the other blued very attractive in back design, and carefully packed in handsomely made and highly colored box. two decks to the box. his sorting. wrapping, packing and other work is done in Lynn.
Who was Frederick Crompton?
In the first article in the Daily Item of Wed, 9 Mar 1938 , we can see Mr Crompton's portrait, accompanying the article.
The accompanying text is regrettably terse:
Mr. Crompton was employed by the Lynn Gas & Electro Co. for a number of years.
but since we have his address in the article, we can find out more through genealogical research.
Crompton was born in Lancashire, England, and emigrated to the US with his family while young. He trained as a chemist, and his other published work seems to focus around domestic gas supply. His game inventing seems to have been confined to this one venture, but it would also seem that he set up shop to make and distribute the game. As we saw elsewhere, the 5-suit craze came and went in a year, and Dictators fared no better than the others. By 1941 he is back making pamphlets about gas heating.
Reconstructed rules for the Game of Dictators
Here are our reconstructed rules for the Game of Dictators
THE PACK
The deck consists of 65 cards: the four conventional suits and a fifth suit of 13 cards (The Clusters). This fifth suit is referred to as the Dictator Suit.
THE HIERARCHY
This game employs a Two-Tier Trump System, creating a "thrilling" layer of strategy over standard bridge:
The Natural Trumps (Dictators): The 13 cards of the fifth suit are Permanent trumps. They outrank any card of the other four suits at all times.
The Auctioned Trumps: The suit named by the high bidder (Hearts, Spades, etc.). These beat the remaining three plain suits but are always outranked by a Dictator card.
The Plain Suits: Follow standard high-card ranking.
THE DEAL & THE WIDOW
The Deal: Each player is dealt 16 cards.
The Widow: The 65th card is placed face-down on the table.
The Exchange: The player making the highest bid takes The Widow into their hand. They then "Bury" one card from their hand face-down in its place.
The Mystery: The buried card is never revealed. Only the bidder knows which card has been removed from play, creating a permanent gap in the players' probability calculations.
THE AUCTION
Bidding proceeds clockwise, starting with the elder player.
The Book: To score, a side must win more than half the available tricks. With 16 tricks in play, The Book is 8 tricks.
The Bids: Players bid for the number of tricks they will take over the book (e.g., a bid of "Two" means the player intends to take 10 tricks).
No-Trump: In a No-Trump contract, there is no "Auctioned Trump." Only the Natural Trumps (Dictators) retain their power to "trump in" on plain suits.
RULES OF PLAY
Following Suit: Players must follow the suit led.
The Dictator’s Veto: If a player cannot follow a plain suit, they may play an Auctioned Trump. However, any subsequent player may play a Dictator card to "out-trump" the trump.
Leading: If a Dictator card is led, all players must follow with a Dictator card if held.
SCORING
Trick Values: * Dictators: 35 points per trick over book.
Spades/Hearts: 30 points.
Diamonds/Clubs: 20 points.
No-Trump: 40 points.
Honors: Holding and winning a trick with the Ace of Dictators (the Cluster Ace) awards a 50-point bonus.
Game: 200 points.
*As there appears to be no surviving ruleset for Crompton's invention, much of what we present here is pieced together from secondary material such as newspaper reports, copyright registrations, and the original patent documents. However, we can surmise that the fifth suit was intended to be called Dictators, and that there were two sets of trumps, because the copyright registry gives the title as "Thrilling new card games. Dictators, More trumps...".
We assume that the Dictators refers to Crompton's 5th suit, and the game emerged from a pre-WWII time when the concept of a Dictator, rooted in memories of Alexander, of the Holy Roman Empire and of Plato's Guardian, still had lustre. The Dictators out-trumped the contracted trump suit by permanent suzerainty.
** Here is the patent:
Frederick Crompton, of Central Falls, Rhode Island was granted patent 91,004,
Design for a Set of Playing Cards.
To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that FREDERICK CROMPTON, a citizen o f the United States, residing at Central Falls, in the county of Providence and State of Rhode Island, has invented a new, original and ornamental Design for a Set o f Playing Cards, of which the following is a specification, reference being had to the drawing forming a part thereof.
The drawing represents face views from a set of playing cards illustrating my new design, which set contains five suits of thirteen cards each, including a fifth suit of which the 10, 9, 8 and Ace are shown. The same scheme of ornamentation is carried throughout the thirteen cards of said fifth suit, the other four suits being conventional.
I claim:
The ornamental design for a set of playing cards substantially as shown and described.
FREDERICK CROMPTON.
There is no prior art listed in the patent.
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