16 Story House of Cards?

April 26, 2018 3:31 PM

Going through some old things, we found a very nice wooden box that contains 16 complete decks of German playing cards (four regular suits, 2-10,B,D,K,A), all with the same backs, stored in jumbled order. The cards definitely come from Germany. The question is what would anyone do with so many decks of cards all mixed together?

The Aces of Diamonds are printed with "Vereinigle Stralsunder - Spielkartenfabriken A-G - Week Altenburg - in Thuringen" The Aces of Hearts have a heart in the center what looks like an inked stamp saying "Deutsches Reisch" above a German eagle and "90" below.

They would have belonged to an upper class family that came to the US in the 1930's. The cards are slightly yellowed but in very good condition. As far I know, no connection to any professional gambling establishments - I'm assuming this is a game that would have been played at home with friends.

posted by metahawk to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (11 answers total)

A number of card games require multiple decks. If you look for the games with more than 52 in the quantity column of this list, that might turn up some ideas. I didn't see anything requiring 16 decks, but there are a few that take 8 decks, like a couple of Canasta variants.
posted by Aleyn at 3:55 PM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe this is too obvious or mundane, but in the U.S., at least, a well-off family early in the 20th century could easily host a party which included multiple card tables. 16 would be on the high side, certainly, but, cards being relatively inexpensive, having some extra decks wouldn't be a big cost.
posted by praemunire at 3:56 PM on April 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

As for being stored in a jumble, perhaps the box used to have separators that kept the decks apart?
posted by erst at 3:59 PM on April 26, 2018

A very lazy cleanup after a duplicate bridge tournament?
posted by GuyZero at 4:12 PM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: The box and cards were in good condition. I think if it came with dividers they would have not disappeared completely.
posted by metahawk at 4:41 PM on April 26, 2018

An epic game of 832 Pickup?
posted by ejs at 5:16 PM on April 26, 2018 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Vereinigte Altenburger und Stralsunder Spielkarten-Fabriken A-G is the brand, and the stamp is apparently a tax stamp used from 1931-1936. The company now goes by the name ASS Altenburger. I wish I were making that up.

No idea what specific party game might have used that many decks and been popular in Germany or with German immigrants, though. If the cards all have matching backs of the same color and they’re not otherwise marked, it wouldn’t be nerts. Duplicate bridge, canasta, and several other trick taking games might use that many decks, but most likely they’d be spread out over multiple tables. My parents’ duplicate bridge club had special trays for all the decks, so having them mixed in one box makes me think it’s not that.
posted by fedward at 5:49 PM on April 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Could they be from a blackjack shoe (the wooden box that holds multiple shuffled decks and dispenses them) from a casino?
posted by sexyrobot at 6:46 PM on April 26, 2018

Blackjack shoes weren't around until the 60s
posted by tiburon at 7:23 PM on April 26, 2018

Response by poster: The stamp on the Ace of hearts matches the German tax stamp for 1929-1931 - thanks fedward.
posted by metahawk at 1:20 PM on April 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Since there was no obvious reason to have all 16 decks together, we decided to divide up the decks among the family. Thanks to fedward, we know about the cards than we did.
posted by metahawk at 6:11 PM on April 28, 2018 [1 favorite]