| Suit System: | F |
| Recommended name: | Wüst Family pattern, Type B |
About 1875 C.L. Wüst in Frankfurt designed a pack of playing cards with Caspar Ludwig Wüst, owner of the playing card factory at that time, as the kings, his wife Sophie Elizabeth as the queens and their son Hermann David as the jacks. This Wüst Family pattern Type A [IPCS #100] might be seen as a corporate identity pack because not long before the company had moved into a new factory building and the family into a new home after the son Herman David returned newly married to Amalie Dorothea Mathilde, nee Schröder, from a four years stay in America. In 1899 Caspar Ludwig, now eighty-two years old, handed over the company to his sons Georg and Hermann. Probably at this time the Wüst Family pattern was redesigned. Sophie Elizabeth was replaced with Amilie Dorothea Mathilde as the queen. Like the jacks in Type A the kings and the queens were now the same and differed only in color. The characters were now divided by a plain horizontal line. This pattern became the best known and longest running of all those produced by Wüst. The reason for the wide use of this pattern was certainly the fact that Wüst issued it over the years with advertising for well known and big companies like HAPAG, Norddeutscher Lloyd, Peters Union Reifen or Wallruth Cigaretten on the reverse side. After the takeover of C.L. Wüst by the Vereinigte Stralsunder Spielkartenfabriken AG in 1927 the pattern was continued until at least the late 1930s. Finally the pattern was produced at least in France and Brazil by other manufacturers.
The courts are the same in each suit and seem to have been based on the courts in the hearts suit of the Wüst Family pattern Type A [IPCS #100]. The king looks half to the right and holds a scepter in his left and an orb with a cross in his right hand. The queen looks half to the left and holds a rose in her right hand. The jack looks half to the right and holds a halberd in his left hand. The courts of each suit have their own colour scheme: clubs is yellow, spades is pink, hearts is blue and diamonds is green, although the jacks switch this rule in the red and black suits respectively. Printed in color-lithography and letterpress.
French suits, king, queen, jack and numerals, Aces with and without scenes. Packs with 52 (and with a joker 53 respectively), 36 or 32 cards are known. There are also packs for the game of Rabouge with spades as suit-sign in all suits.
Jean Baptiste Paul Grimaud, Paris, c.1920; Ver. Altenburger und Stralsunder Spielkar-tenfabriken A.-G., Altenburg, c.1939; Comp. Paulista de Papeis e Artes Graficas, S.Paulo-Rio, Brazil, c.1980.
Hasenpflug, Rudolf: Das “Hausbild Wüst”-Ein Familienporträt, Das Blatt Nr. 40, Berlin 2009, S.55ff; Shaw, Martin and Symons, Paul: Playing cards from the factory C.L. Wüst, Turnhout 2005; Mann Silvia: All Cards on the Table, Leinfelden-Echterdingen und Marburg 1990, p.180; Janssen, Han: de geschiedenis van de Speelkaart, Rijswijk 1985, p.105; Kohlmann, Theodor u.a.: Bube Dame König, Berlin 1982, p. 157.
| The International Playing-Card Society | 03/2013 PS |