frank Posted July 21, 2008 Report Share Posted July 21, 2008 I bought this a while ago and for the longest time just couldn't figure out what it was. "Car tel est notre plaisir" is what a French king says as a fatuous justification of getting what he wants just because he wants it, and for a while I thought it was somehow related to government. The figure of Fortuna on the obverse, with her wheel and her rudder, is pretty conventional. Eventually of course I looked more closely and saw the Spades and Clubs symbols at the tops of columns on the reverse... [the piece is copper, 37 mm diameter] Although the scoring isn't exactly that of modern European whist (as played, for example, in Belgium: see this link) the types of contracts are similar. The coin is pretty beat up, but you can see that each line of numbers starts with a higher number, from 5 to 13. The number of tricks taken are listed starting on the left (5 thru 13), with scores including doubling and tripling. PET.MIS = Petite Misere = you must lose 12 tricks, using no trumps GR.MISER = Grande Misere = you must lose 13 tricks, using no trumps PET.M.OUV or GR.M.OU = Petite or Grande Misere Ouverte = same as Petite or Grande Misere, except that you must lay your cards openly on the table after the first trick Schlemm = Slam (you must take all tricks, using trumps or not) I don't know what MIS GEN means. GR. FORC may refer to a situation when, if you hold 3 aces, you are forced to let the other players know and you must play to a certain contract. Whist was a common game in 18th- and 19th-century France, especially among wealthy gamblers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
constanius Posted July 22, 2008 Report Share Posted July 22, 2008 Very interesting token and good info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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