Philips Sept Familles

Published May 01, 2014 • Updated July 14, 2020

“Philips Sept Familles” promotional happy families game from the 1970s

A nice souvenir from the 1970s promoting Philips appliances
featuring different models of radios, lighting, turntables, etc.

Above: the box. The back has a blank panel for retailers to insert their own address.

Above: the reverse. The complete set contains 42 cards plus a rules card and two extra explanatory cards, all written in French. All images courtesy Rex Pitts.

While Philips' first product was manufactured in 1891, the first product that would fit in the Consumer Electronics division was a television, experimentally manufactured in 1925. In 1927 Philips began producing radios. Only five years later Philips had sold one million of them. Another major product release came in 1963, the Compact Cassette. [Source Wikipedia] read more →

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By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)

United Kingdom • 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.