CARD GAME REVIVALS
There are many older card games, variations on standard packs and innovations that flared and died like shooting stars. Those that are accessible to the modern card player are either in museums or priced out of playability by the market.
The Flowerdew Press has made new versions of these old games for the modern player. These are not printed from scans but are redrawn as new originals. In remaking the cards modern features such as card corner indices, jokers, and size standardisation have been incorporated,
The Cloister Hunting Pack
The oldest intact set of European playing cards is in the Cloisters Gallery in New York. Called the Hunting Deck, the suits are Horns, Collars, Nooses and Tethers. The court cards are considered to be portraits of long dead nobility dressed in their finest, and as an art-historical record of life in the Burgundian courts they are invaluable. Rather than produce a replica of the original oval cards, the Flowerdew Press has produced a pack of domino-sized cards, complete with corner indices. We haven't provided a joker, as the Jack of Nooses is in fact a jester!
The Aesthetic Card Pack No 2
In 1900, Henri Meunier made the Aesthetic Card Pack No. 1, a 32 card piquet deck in a classic Art Nouveau style as publicity for a champagne house. Featuring the classic organic interlacings of the style and completed by Belle Epoque poster court cards, it is evocative of the world of Swann. The Flowerdew Press has recreated the pack as Aesthetic No 2, by making imitative designs for cards 2-6 for a full set of 52 cards, and added 2 jokers using another Meunier image. The set is enhanced with standard modern card indices, and rounded off with a suitable back design drawn from still another Meunier postcard.
A Parasurrealist Card Pack
In 1943, the great Surrealist artists created the Marseille Pack, a revolutionary pack of cards with the four suits of Keyholes, Stars, Flames and Waterwheels. The court cards were replaced by prefatory heroes of the movement, featuring luminaries such as Novalis, Baudelaire, and Paracelsus. Although there are existing packs that recreate the Marseille set, the Flowerdew Press took a different approach. The aces have been redrawn, and the court cards have been replaced this time with a card for each of the senses of Touch, Sight, and Sound.
Additionally, in the Surrealist tradition of uselessness (as exemplified by fur-lined teacups and seats with spikes) the cards are available in a dozen sets, each with a flip-back animation featuring classics of 20th century art.
1890 Swiss Patience Pack
The traditional Swiss pack has suits Acorns, Hawkbells, Flowers and Shields. It was developed for playing the game of Jass lacks aces, and cards 3-5. The Flowerdew Press has imagined what a completed deck would be from the time, and added aces as pennants (to compliment the Banner Tens) and complimentary cards for 3-5. Additionally, the suit of Shields (traditionally shown as black and white hatched armorial diagrams) has been coloured in with gules, azure, sable, or, argent, purpure, and vert. A jack has been added to the set, using the Fool imagery from a contemporary tarot set. Now you can play patience or whist in the traditional Swiss livery!