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Bread & Honey

Published November 12, 2015 Updated July 22, 2022

A charming Victorian family card game involving Clowns, Queens, Kings, Maids and thirty-seven Blackbirds manufactured by Thos De la Rue, c.1900.

1900 United Kingdom De la Rue Richard Doyle Childhood Card Games

This charming game, based on the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song for Sixpence”, was registered in c.1896 and is played with a pack of fifty-three cards, consisting of four Clowns, four Queens, four Kings, four Maids (top row) and thirty-seven Blackbirds. The designer is uncredited but the style of drawing suggests it may have been Richard Doyle (1824-1883) who designed other games for De la Rue. See the Rules here

“Bread & Honey” family card game manufactured by Thos De la Rue, c.1900

Above: “Bread & Honey” family card game manufactured by Thos De la Rue, c.1900. The game was later licensed to HP Gibson & Sons Ltd.

The clown card (number 1) actually reads "Sing a song for sixpence" and not "sing a song of sixpence" as we now know it.

Box from “Bread & Honey” family card game manufactured by Thos De la Rue, c.1900
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By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)

Member since January 30, 2009

Rex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many.

His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.

Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service.

Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.

His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.


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