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  home   >   collection   >   Bayerische Karte No. 23

This pack was made by the Vereinigte Stralsunder Spielkartenfabriken Abt. Halle in Halle/Saale around 1910. The court cards show the Bavarian standard pattern.

The special thing about this pack is that the pip cards do not show the normal scenes but views from different places in Bavaria. But actually, not all the places are in Bavaria: 'Marktplatz in Halle', 'Burg Hohenzollern' and 'Münster in Ulm'. The latter is shown before it was finished in 1890. This shows that the cards were originally designed earlier, see below.

Another specialty is that the name or some abbreviation of the companies that designed the cards are shown on many cards, even on some of the court cards. The designing companies are 'Eduard Ade, Stuttgart' and 'X. A. Rudeloff, Halle', where the 'X. A.' stands for 'Xylographische Anstalt'. When abbreviated, the names are mostly somewhere at the bottom of the design.

Actually, these cards were originally made in 1880 by Ludwig & Schmidt in Halle, the predecessor company of VSS Abt. Halle. This is shown by an advert that was published in 1880: In 1886, they sent out an advertising letter offering this pack and a similar double-faced one, together with a sample card: