Goodall bezique set. 1863, Erect Feather
Double Bezique set, 2x 32 with box, and markers. Lovely geometric designed backs. These cards are about as mint as you will get cards of this age without their wrapper. The leather covered score-cards with their delicate wooden hands too for that matter, even the box is in excellent condition. Bezique was an amazingly popular game in the mid Victorian period and sets like this sold in their thousands. despite this, examples as lovely, and old, as this are very thin on the ground today. In 1862 the obligatory “Frizzle” duty ace was dispensed with. Tax on cards was reduced to threepence a pack, indicated on the wrapper and makers were free to design their own ace of spades. This is the first of the very distinctive Goodall ‘Elf’ aces, a design which lasted for over a hundred years. This first erect feather ace version only lasted two or three years at most and it was claimed by the late Major Donald Welsh, founder of the "English Playing Card Society" and an acknowledged expert of royal cards, that the feather was left erect to Honour the Prince of Wales who was married in 1863. Postage incl for UK only