Le jeu des 7 Familles ’Utuafare
Colourful Happy Families game from Tahiti depicting costumes from different archipelagoes.
In Tahitian, 'Utuafare means ‘family’ or ‘household’. This locally produced card game comprises seven families named after seven of the archipelagoes which make up French Polynesia. Different costumes associated with each archipelago are featured, with a different background colour for each set of six cards. The card titles are in French and Tahitian. The cards themselves have square corners. The name of the printer – distribution image & musique (DIM) – is repeated multiple times on the reverse.
Above: Le jeu des 7 Familles ’Utuafare card game made by DIM & STP-Multipress, Fenua (local name for Tahiti). Date unknown. 42 cards in tuck box. Size: 60 x 90 mm.
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By Roddy Somerville
France • Member since May 31, 2022 • Contact
Roddy started collecting stamps on his 8th birthday. In 1977 he joined the newly formed playing-card department at Stanley Gibbons in London before setting up his own business in Edinburgh four years later. His collecting interests include playing cards, postcards, stamps (especially playing cards on stamps) and sugar wrappers. He is a Past President of the Scottish Philatelic Society, a former Chairman of the IPCS, a Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards and Curator of the WCMPC’s collection of playing cards. He lives near Toulouse in France.
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