01-020 Bourgeois Tarot

01-020
Bourgeois Tarot

When talking about tarot, most people will immediately think of cartomancy. What if I told you that tarot was originally a pack of playing cards just for gaming purpose?

Tarot is not designed for occult use at the beginning. It was evolved from the 52-card deck in the 15^th century and was just a deck of playing cards for games. Only until late 18^th century, people started using it for cartomancy. And the most common pattern for tarot card reading, the Rider-Waite tarot deck, was first published in 1909, almost 5 decades after the first tarot game.

Like standard playing cards, tarot design changes from time to time. The only existing tarot gaming deck, Bourgeois Tarot deck, emerged from Germany in the 19^th century. Bourgeois Tarot is still popular in Western Europe and French-speaking Canada.

The first noticeable difference between a tarot deck and a standard 52-card deck is the card size. There is a standard, 2¾” x 4¾”, although non-standard size cards are common. Bourgeois Tarot deck bears the French suits of clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades. The "pip" and court cards of the Bourgeois Tarot are similar in format to those of the traditional 52-card deck, with the addition of the knight (chevalier) face card. This makes each suit to bear 14 cards instead of 13. In addition, there are 21 trump cards, also called the “trump suit”, and 1 fool card.

There are 2 patterns, the Black Forest Cego pack used only in southwest Germany and the Tarot Nouveau used everywhere else, but especially in France. The pack produced by Fournier is the easiest to find. It is in Tarot Nouveau pattern.

Bourgeois Tarot

The Fournier type of Tarot Nouveau deck is composed of 78 cards. 56 are suited in the traditional French suits, with 14 cards per suit; ten "pip" cards with values 1 to 10 (the ace bears the number 1 instead of the familiar "A", and usually ranks low), and four court cards: jack (valet), knight or cavalier (chevalier or cavalier), queen (dame) and king (roi). The other 22 are the 21 trumps (atouts) and one fool.

Aces bear the number 1 instead of A

Court cards of the 4 suits – V, C, D & R

The trump cards and the fool

Each trump card has one scene show an "urban" representation of a particular trait or idea (listed below), while the other side depicts a more "rural" interpretation. The scenes depicted are as follows: 

General theme	Card number	Card theme	Urban representation	Rural representation
The four ages	2	Childhood	Children playing in the park	Boys playing at the fête
	3	Youth	Group of youths in the park	Three maidens in town clothes
	4	Maturity	In the office	Women with children
	5	Old Age	Grandfather	Grandmother
The four times of day	6	Morning	Breakfast	Mowing the wheat
	7	Afternoon	Discussion in the parlour	Rest in the field
	8	Evening	Music room	The family reunited on the doorstep
	9	Night	Returning home after hunting	The night watch
The four elements	10	Earth	The mine
		Air		Shepherd in the mountains
	11	Water	Boating on the lake
		Fire		The picnic
The four leisures	12	Dance	Soirée	Folk dance
	13	Shopping	The store	The village store
	14	Open air	Hunting	Fishing
	15	Visual arts	Photography	Painting
The four seasons	16	Spring	Gardener in the park	Sheep shearing
	17	Summer	At the races	Drying the wheat
	18	Autumn	At the market	Threshing wheat
	19	Winter	Skating	The vigil
The game	20	The game	Cards	Bowling
Folly	21	Collective	The carnival	The military parade
	1	Individual	The sad clown	The fool and the ballerina

The tarot deck is technically a “standard” deck, which means many games can be played with it. But the most common game is French Tarot. Inside the Fournier pack, there is an instruction booklet showing the rules of this game. The booklet is in French only. English rules, or rules in any other languages are widely available on internet though.

Instruction booklet, in French only

I have not played French Tarot with my kids. The game is too difficult for them. Even for me, it took me some time to understand the game play.

General Information

Player	2 to 8
Playing Time	30 mins
Age	12+
Year Released	1865
Designer	C.L. Wüst
Publisher	Heraclio Fournier
Family	Auction/Bidding, Team-Based Game, Trick-taking
Score	6.8 (Board Game Geek)

Specifications

Card size	6cm × 11cm
Deck size	78 cards
# of suits	5 – Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, Spades & Trumps
Details	The deck is in traditional French suit. Pip cards are valued from 1 to 10, then 4 face cards V, C, D & R. Trumps consist of 21 cards, depicting genre scenes of whimsical early 19th-century social activities. And 1 Fool card. There are no Jokers.

Game Play

Where to buy?

Etsy.

I got my copy from Etsy. The seller is Shop4Top from Lithuania. The shop provides free shipment through standard airmail, slow but free.

Cards are beautifully printed. I am happy to include this pack in my collection.

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01-019 German-suited Playing Cards

01-019
German-suited Playing Cards

Apart from the widely popular Standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards and the second popular Spanish-suited cards, there exist another “standard” deck playing cards in the world. It is the German-suited playing cards.

Although called “German-suited”, part of the Germany have already adopted the French-suited cards. German-suited cards are mainly used in Central Europe, which includes Austria, German-speaking Switzerland, Liechtenstein, north Italy, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and only the south and east parts of Germany. People living further east of these countries again adopted the French-suited.

German-suited playing cards also come with 4 suits. But the suits are different from the French-suits or the Spanish-suits. The 4 German-suits are Acorns (Eichel or Kreuz), Leaves (Grün, Blatt, Laub, Pik or Gras), Hearts (Herz or Rot) and Bells (Schelle, Schell or Bolle). Pattern varies between different area.

German-suited playing cards

Among different “standard” decks of playing cards, German-suited cards have the least number of cards. A pack of German-suited cards normally come with 32 or 36 cards. While most Spanish-suited cards skip number 8 & 9, German-suited cards skip number 2 to 6. Some packs include a 33^rd card called Weli, which is 6 of the Bells and often used as a wild card. Some packs contain all 4 “Number 6” cards. There are no Jokers.

In Spanish-suited cards, face cards start from value 10. The German-suited cards follow the French pattern and start from 11. Face cards are “U” Under Knave (Unter = Untermann i.e. subordinate, underling or sergeant), “O” Over Knave (Ober = Obermann i.e. superordinate, overlord or officer) & “K” King (König).

Cards are very colourful. In some patterns, every the number cards are decorated with pictures.

German-suited playing cards are also standard decks, the pack normally includes no instructions as all people should know how to play cards.

Specifications

Card size	Not specific, down to the printer.
Deck size	32, 33 or 36 cards
# of suits	4 – Acorns, Leaves, Hearts & Bells
Details	For each suit, pip cards are valued from 7 to 10, then followed by U, O, K & A. Some packs include number 6. U, O, K are court cards which represent Under Knave, Over Knave, and the King. There are no Jokers.

Game Play

I have not played these cards with my kids yet. I am still looking for a game that can be played with German cards. Actually, all card games played with the German or Spanish-suited cards can be played with a Standard 52-card deck.

Where to buy?

Etsy.

Playing cards are in public domain. So technically everyone can print their own playing cards. But maybe because of their lesser popularity, there are not too many manufacturers publishing German-suited playing cards nowadays.

I got my copy from Etsy. The seller is Shop4Top from Lithuania. The shop provides free shipment through standard airmail, slow but free. The deck is printed by the Italian printer Modiano. It is in Tell pattern. The Ober and Unter cards depict William Tell and other characters from Friedrich Schiller's famous play “Wilhelm Tell”. The cards are also called “Hungarian cards”.

The Ober and Unter cards are replaced by characters from "Wilhelm Tell".

Kings remain but not named.

Aces depict the four seasons.

The single "Weli" card is usually played as a wild card.

Even the normal number cards are beautifully decorated.

Cards are made of plastic and are beautifully printed. I am happy to include this pack in my collection. My card collection would not be completed without a pack of German-suited cards in it.

Never heard of Wilhelm Tell's story? Watch this!

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