Decorated pip cards from C.L.Wüst

During the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century the factory of C.L.Wüst produced several packs of patience playing card with decorative pip cards. The pip cards (2 -10) are always decorated and sometimes the aces. I have four of these in my collection which I will show you here. There may be others of course, but I have not seen them during my 40 years of collecting. If any readers know of others I would be most interested to hear about them. These packs were all also sold without decorated pip cards so I presume the decorated versions were sold to make them more attractive to patience players, who were mostly ladies during the period in which they were produced.

The packs shown below are all patience size and have 52 cards.

1. Boston patience c.1870. Suits separately decorated with Grapes, Roses, Acorns and Cherries. The pip cards are all hand coloured.

2. Patience No.47a c.1900. Aces and pip cards decorated with garlands of roses.

3. Patience No.103 c.1900. Swiss scenic aces. All pip cards have a purple decorative leaf-like border.

4. Patience No.103 Variation of above. c.1900. All pip cards with decorative border of leaves and red or blue flowers.

All cards shown are from the collection of Paul Symons ©