Grand Fenwick: a new 3-suit pattern

This is a pack of cards that come out of an alternative history, where there is a fusion of the Swiss and Saxon patterns, resulting in only plant iconography.

The idea is that a possible path in the evolution of card pack design could be to grow the number of cards, and have fewer suits. There is a precedent: the Liechtenstein pattern adds the Swiss Shields suit to the Latin pattern (Cups, Coins, Sticks and Swords), and some have two lower courts (Knight and Squire).

Drawing on design elements of our Dresden Whist completion pack and our Swiss Whist completion pack we have made a single Floreate pack with botanical suits: , Leaves, Roses, and Acorns, representing the stages of a plants life - leaf, flower, and seed.

We imagined what a small principality might do, drawing on the traditions of German and Swiss patterns, and their arrangements of cards. Both have lost their Aces, and elevated their Deuces. The Swiss tradition has the Banner replacing the 10-spot.

We imagined how the Duchy of Grand Fenwick might decide Have three court cards, three flag cards, and have an increased number of spot-cards: the result would be 1-12-spots, then Pennant-Ace, Deuce and Banner at the top. This makes 18 cards per suit, 3 cards, and 72 cards in all

Here are the Ones of the three suits, each in their horn:

Here are the 18 Leaf cards - we redrew courts from the Swiss pattern to make the a matching Unter, Ober, and Konig

Here are the Roses

And the Acorns

We've also imagined new card games, social and solitaire, for the pack. We will discuss them in another post.

If you would like a pack of Grand Fenwick cards, you can buy them printed on demand at Make Playing Cards, here.