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10:24am on Saturday, 16th October, 2021:

Dondorf 25

Anecdote

Although eBay seems to have stopped sending me regular search updates for playing cards, that doesn't mean I can't look manually. Most of them are out of my price range these days, but I managed to snap up these last week:



These are Dondorf Kinder Spielkarten #25. They're not the same as Kinder Patience #26, a pack of which I bought in April — the picture cards are quite different.

The way to date Dondorf cards is to look at the Jack of Clubs. This one has "B.DONDORF" and "FRANKFORT s/M." on it. The lack of a "GmbH" after the company name tells us that the cards were printed before 1910. The fact it's "S/M." (for "sur Main") means that the cards were intended for sale in France, but the box has "FRANKFURT a/M." on it so was sold in Germany. The cards themselves changed to "a/M." in 1906.

This particular design was manufactured from 1870 onwards, but until 1880 the cards had square corners. Even the later ones didn't feature numerals in their indeces, so we're looking at a pack manufactured between 1880 and 1906. There's no tax stamp, though, and the deck never had a joker, so this is as close as we can get.

I really like these cards. I don't normally choose Diamonds when I scan cards to show you, but I did this time because I love the way the Queen is holding her dolly. The Queen of Spades has a book, the Queen of Clubs has a flower and the Queen of Hearts has a piece of paper with a heart on it (which I take to be either a greetings card or a letter); my younger daughter used to hold her dolls just like that when she was little, though, so the Queen of Diamonds wins.




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Copyright © 2021 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).