Playing Cards: African Legends (KultureGames)

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The suits are non-standard: spades are represented by native huts; diamonds by native shields; clubs by globes or balls; and hearts by a safety pin to which is attached a flag depicting Africa. JOHNSON: I want people to be able to have conversations about these people while you're at a game night where it's fun, but you also can leave with, like, a powerful conversation or, really, just being inspired.

Ferro Torrelles, Victor: Variantes en los Naipes de Heraclio Fournier, La Sota No.12, ASESCOIN, Madrid, Feb 1995.There is no booklet but instead a rather fine fold-out map of East Africa, also printed by Fournier. We are among a group of 12 poets and peers, taking part in a weeklong fellowship that is requiring us to engage with the American South. Many of us have roots here, but the relationship is less tactile now, because a majority of us have scattered ourselves across the country in our adulthood. The days on the trip involve long, hot walks through paths lined with tree branches drooping under the weight of their own exhaustion. Sitting on porches of old homes and scowling at war monuments. The nights involve readings of our work for the communities we’ve landed in and engaging in panel discussions with one another. In between, we joke and swap stories and debate music and, of course, make threats about how dangerous we are with a handful of cards. KING: She has more ideas for fusing great faces into playing cards. And she wants to make sure her idea endures beyond just the next couple of days.

This map is dated 1957 so I wonder if it was also included in the first edition with the "explanatory booklet" which Matt Probert mentions. Rex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many. The tax stamp on the 4 of Clubs is a different, later one, and the manufacturer's name at the top of the 4 of Clubs reads "HERACLIO FOURNIER" rather than "Heraclio Fournier, S.A.".