US832005A - Card-game apparatus. - Google Patents

Description

PATENTED SEPT. 25, 1906.

G. M. ATKINSON.

CARD GAME APPARATUS.

APPLIGATION FILED APR. 7, 1904.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l.

WT/VESSES THE-NORM! PETERS LUTGKJHNGTZJAN 0 c No. 882,005. PATENTED SEPT. 25, 1906. U. M. ATKINSON.

CARD GAME APPARATUS.

APPLIOATION FILED APR. 7, 1904.

2 SHEETSSHBET 2.

WT/VfSi F UNITED STATES OARRO M. ATKINSON, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

CARD-GAME APPARATUS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 25, 1906.

Application filed pr 7,1904.- Serial No. 202,109.

To all whom it WMLZ/ concern;

Be it known that I, CARRo M. ATKINSON, of Boston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Card-Game Apparatus, of which the following is a specification.

The game apparatus which embodies this invention comprises a series of portrait or performer cards for each prominent branch of the dramatic profession, also a like series of theater and of audience cards and three odd cards representing influences or luck, good and bad, all as hereinafter explained. There are sixty-six cards in the pack. Various branches of the stage art are represented, as follows: grand opera, tragedy, drama, comedy, comic opera, vaudeville, and farce, seven cards for each branch, each bearing a picture of some conspicuous player. There are also seven theater-cards, one for grand opera, one for tragedy, &c., each bearing an illustration or legend suggestive of the theater. There are also seven audience-cards, appropriately illustrated. The pack is completed by one card called holiday, one card called blizzard or hoodoo, and one card called deadhead, each card of these three preferably bearing a symbolic or conventional illustration in addition to the name.

The game may be played by any number from three to seven. If more play, use two or more tables with separate packs of cards. If seven play, use the entire pack. If six play, discard eight cards, seven labeled Farce and one audiencecard. If five play, omit cards labeled Farce and Vaudeville and two audience-cards, and so on for fewer players-that is, discard nine cards (seven performer, one theater, and one audience) for each player less than seven. If only three play, discard also the deadhead-card.

T he game.-Cards are dealt one at a time until all except three cards have been dealt. Each player should then have nine cards. The three cards remaining are placed face down on the table in front of the dealer in what is called the green room. The dealer must then say Doors open, the signal for all to pick up and sort their cards. When the dealer has within a reasonable time sorted his cards, he must say Curtains up. Then play begins.

The object of the game is to be the first player to fill some special class of theater with the artists that belong there and an audience that is, to hold seven cards of the same description, (say comedy or tragedy or vaudeville,) the corresponding theater-card, and an audience-card. For example, if after the deal a player holds, say, the vaudeville theater-card and four vaudeville performercards he needs but three more vaudevillecards and an audience-card to complete his hand. If he succeeds in securing these cards and announcing the fact by the words House full before any other player similarly succeeds, he is the winner, and a new hand is dealt.

No hand is complete if it contains more than one audience-card nor without one un less it contains the holiday-card, which Will serve in place of any other except the theater-card. Thus if. a player holds the lyric theater (comic opera) card, seven comicopera cards, and also has the holiday-card his hand is complete.

When a hand is completed by the holidaycard, the value of that hand is increased by ten points. I,

The blizzard-card is as detrimental to success' in the game of stage as the bad weather which it represents is to the theatrical business. If you receive this card, get rid of it. Its holder at the end of a hand is fined ten points. The deadhead-card is dangerous, too, although, like the holiday-card, it can be reckoned as standing for any other card except the theater-card and helps make a winning hand. When a winning house full contains the deadhead-card, five points are added to its value; but if a player who does not have the winning hand at the close of a round of play holds the deadhead-card he is fined five points unless he also holds two or more audience-cards as protection, in which case he loses nothing.

The game is one hundred points. A full house of grand-opera or tragedy cards counts fifty. A full house of drama or comedy cards counts thirty. A full house of comicopera, vaudeville, or farce cards counts twenty. The holiday-card. adds ten points to the score of a player who has it at the close of a hand. The deadhead-card in a winning hand adds five points to its value; but its holder in any other hand is fined five points unless he holds also two or more audience-cards, which protect it. The holder of the blizzard-card at the close of a hand is fined ten points. A player claiming house full who does not have it is fined ten points. If a player who has made no points is fined, it is set down to his score with a minus sign, and he is said to be a deadhead.

The points of the winner of any hand are counted before those of any other player. Thus if A had seventy points and B ninety and A secured a full house of drama-cards, counting thirty, he would win the game, although B held the holiday-card, counting ten.

The game will be played in accordance with printed rules not necessary to be herein stated at length.

The accompanying drawings illustrate the series of cards above referred to.

Figure 1 represents one of the portrait or performer cards for the comedy branch of the profession. Fig. 2 showing a theater or playhouse card; Fig. 3, an audience-card;

and Fig. 4, one of the influence-cards, the

illustration showing the one known as bliz- Zard. Figs. 5 and 6 show, respectively, the holiday and deadhead cards.

I claim as my invention 1. In a card-game apparatus, a series of performer-cards bearing representations of members of each prominent branch of the dramatic profession, two like series of cards indicative of the playhouse and of the audience, and a plurality of odd cards representing good and bad luck or influences bearing on the stage, substantially as set forth.

2. In a card-game apparatus, a series of portrait performer-cards bearing representations of members of each prominent branch of the dramatic profession, the cards of each series being'severally identified with players conspicuous in that branch, two other series of cards respectively conventional or symbolic of playhouse and audience, and a trio of odd cards severally representing favorable or adverse influences and of positive and negative assumed value distinct from the other cards, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof I have afliXed my signature in presence of two witnesses.

CARRO M. ATKINSON.

Witnesses:

A. H. SPENCER, FLORENCE E. RYDER.

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