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1. Introduction

1. Introduction
Card games were very popular in Britain and America during the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Members of the upper classes liked to gamble during long winter evenings when there was not much else to do. In the 18th and beginning of the 19th century mother-of-pearl counters were used to count the scores during card-games known as ‘Ombre’, ‘Quadrille’ and ‘Pope Joan’. Another popular card game played during the 18th century was called ‘Ruff and Honours’ which by around 1800 became known as ‘whist’, a predecessor of ‘poker’. Whist used a another kind of score-counting. Different kinds of score-counters were used but by the second half of the nineteenth century a type had been developed which became very fashionable especially in England. Mostly sold in pairs of contrasting colours (see Quick Find 2632) these score-counters or ‘Whist markers’ were produced in different shapes and sizes and received names such as ‘Pall Mall’, ‘The Foster’, ‘The Camden’, ‘The Pelham’. Very small ones came out under the name ‘Tom Thumb’. Most were manufactured in England but the most spectacular ones were made during the Meiji (1868 – 1912) period in Japan. In addition to gold lacquering, a technique called ’Shibayama’ was used to embellish the ivory keys of the whist markers with inlays of birds and insects in semi-precious stones and mother-of- pearl. Some of them have simple inlays but others depict miniature life-like images which are really stunning.
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