| Name | Betjemanns Games Compendium with brass cribbage and bezique scorers |
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| Collection | Miscellaneous - public |
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| Object Type | Games |
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| Manufacturer/Publisher | G. Betjemanns |
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| Nationality | British |
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| Date | c1870-1872 |
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| "WoodBox" | 1 |
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| "Board" | |
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| Rules included? | |
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| Links to Maker records | Betjemann (Certain)
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| The maker is on the lock:- G.Betjemanns ,London.
The retailer on brass plate between hinges, is John Anderson &co 62 King st Manchester.
Contents missing except for cribbage board and bezique marker.
Betjemans were very high class retailers of fancy boxes equipped for all sorts of purposes – portable writing slopes, toilet sets for ladies and gents and games compendia etc.
One of the sons went on to be the well known poet Sir John Betjeman.
It is almost certain that they manaufactured none of the stuff themselves as identical sets appear with marks of other retailers and with no marks at all. The hinges and locks suggest that it was made by an English firm. The contents would have been sourced by the boxmaker and the gilt brass of these boards are suspected to be French, made in France for the English market.
Walnut boxes would have been the second highest quality available at the time…the most costly would have been Coromandel (or Calamader as they call it in the USA) which is a streaky type of rosewood, and the top of the ranged would have had the gilt brass strapwork mounted with cabochon malachite or tigers eye agate for full gothic effect.
The scoring possiblitilies in Bezique evolved quite quickly from the introduction of the game into London Society in December 1868 unitl around 1874 when things simmered down a bit, and the scoring options on the boards in these combination boxes makes it likely that they date to the early to middle range of this period – say 1870 to 1872.
A couple of other Betjeman games compendiums have been seen with the original playing cards and, Like Mappin and Webb they seem to have used De La Rue playing cards, although Goodall cards were at this date generally thought to be the finest. |
