Swiss Whist Cards

We mentioned in an earlier posting that we have been pursuing completions of the Germanic and Swiss pattern cards, to enable international games to be played in traditional card iconography. In this post we will discuss our Swiss Whist set.

We did several things: we added an Ace, a 3,4 and 5 spot, made the common cards double-headed and added index markers. We kept the traditional court design because of the iconography of the Unter and Ober. The Unter figures hold the pip symbol below them, the Obers raise them high.

Here is the Roses suit. You can see that we have made a matching pennant to the Banner that serves as the 10-spot for the Swiss tradition, and the 3,4, and 5-spot cards are evolved back from the higher cards.

Here are the Shields. Normally the cards are black and white with hatching. We traced the hatching back to 19th century heraldic conventions and coloured them accordingly. (Note that the Deuce of Shields conventionally has the details found on an Ace of Spades in English packs):

And the Bells (the Deuce of Bells conventionally also publishing details)

And here are the Acorns. To some extent they repeat the Acorns in our Dresden pattern

For the Narre card, we have used a Tarot fool of matching print style:

This harmonious completion of the swiss traditional packs enables the playing of intenrational solitaire and competition games, or traditional games with some of the cards set aside. You can purchase a pack printed on demand at Make Playing Cards here.

We've also reused the Leaves and Roses suits in our special Grand Fenwick Pack, which we shall discuss soon.