Traveling within the World
MacGregor Historic Games
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Our booth At the MN Renaissance Fest 2012
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Kings Queens and Face Xards
Occasionally it is said that there are specific historical figures that are represented by the jacks, kings and queens in a deck of cards. One theory claims when playing cards were first created the kings represented four of the great rulers in western history: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar,…
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Everything Old is New Again
A number of popular twentieth-century board games are actually just up-dated versions of period games. Interestingly, these traditional games have had their rules changed just enough, and original artwork added to the boards and/or pieces, to allow these “proprietary” versions to be copyright…
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Portable Fabric Games
Our first line of products when went into the game business is our portable fabric games. We had experimented with printing on card stock and laminating the boards, but found that they would not lay flat after bering rolled for…
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"Maw" -A Card Game of the Scottish Court
Just a little something I put together as a handout for a local Scottish event we attendedHistory. Maw was a game that became popular in 16th century Britain, and is the ancestor to a family of games associated with Ireland and Irish communities abroad. It was also played in the Scottish court, and…
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My Celtic Art
A little look at my Celtic art, some of it non-game related.
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Gambling & Early America
Following the English Civil war there was a large increase in gambling in England. Following the restoration of the crown, royalists who had sought refuge overseas brought home with them many of the card and dice games they had learned while on the continent. Gambling continued to became an…
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Jost Amman 16th C. Playing Cards
Dating to 1588 this 52-card deck is based on one of the most significant works of Jost Amman, one of the more prolific artists of the German Renaissance. German printers experimented with a wide range of suit symbols, this deck uses Books, Jars, Printers' Ink Pads and Cups. As was common in German…
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Sinners & Saints (playing card history)
I've recently been boning-up on the history of playing cards since we came out with three new reproduction 16th century decks. It seems the early playing card industry in Germany may have had a little boost in help from the church. When Pope Boniface IX (1389-1404) extended the grant of…
We have been in business researching and selling board, dice and card games from the past since 1994. Our replica playing cards are used by historical reenactors around the world.
We've owned a booth at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival since 1995 and appear at a number of other events in the midwest.
While we do not claim to be the last word on historic games, we do take pride in our on-going research, and the wide variety of historic and regional rules we include with our games. We are happy to answer questions whenever we can, or refer people to other sources for research help.