Biggles the card game

[sholio]

Dear Biggles fandom, allow me to share with you my discovery today that there existed, in the 1950s, a Biggles card game, and you can see all the illustrations from the cards here. (Many repurposed from the books, but there are some I haven't seen before.)

TIL, as well, that apparently this sort of self-contained game in a box of cards was a Thing in that era. You can see more of them at the website, like Foreign Legion and Test Pilot (both of which it showed me due to similarity to the Biggles game, heh). Here's the full list of similar card games from that site, and I also found a page that has the actual rules for the Biggles game, which apparently was meant to be played a bit like rummy.

Anyway, it looks like the Biggles game can also still be found on eBay, information I am putting out there as a public service. If you buy it, take pictures.

Comments

[sheron]

:O

Saves header image immediately ♥

[sholio]

He pretty. :D

[sartorias]

boggling ...

[sholio]

I love discovering weird old tie-in merch from past decades. Apparently there's a CJ Cherryh Alliance-Union board game from the early 80s that I would love to get my hands on.

[sartorias]

I've seen that kind of stuff from dealers at really big cons, like Worldcon.

[yhlee]

I saw this, or one of these - it was a Downbelow Station board game in the "junky old games people are trying to get rid of" room at GenCon when we attended some years ago. I wish to God I'd just ponied up the $20 for it, but also luggage space was an issue with GenCon purchases. XD It did not look like an especially enthralling game, but I could have been wrong!

[yhlee]

Not the Biggles card game, but a Biggles Thing is on its way to you - keep an eye on your mailbox. (Well, it'll realistically probably be a couple weeks, but.) :3

[sholio]

Ooooh! I am excited and curious! I will look forward to it. :D

[yhlee]

:D I look forward to your impressions. ;)

[cornerofmadness]

those cards look really cool

[timespirt]

The cards are very cool.

[philomytha]

Lots of excellent airplane pictures! I love the thunderstorm one in particular, and the one with the bird attacking the airplane, plus some illustrations that wouldn't go amiss for a h/c fic :-)

[sholio]

I was thinking more or less the same thing (about h/c) and, uh, I may have actually bought a set of these off eBay. >.> I will report back as to whether this turns out to be inspirational for fic.

Help.

[philomytha]

There’s a discussion thread on the forum saying which book each image comes from, I thought maybe the ruined castle was Foreign Legion but apparently it’s the ruins from Gobi.

https://bigglesforum.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=1418

[sholio]

Oooh! Thanks for finding that. :D (I want it to be Foreign Legion ....)

[sheron]

I'll see your cards of eBay and raise you "contemplating various aviation museums around the country" XD

[sholio]

What has happened to us

[sheron]

Biggles 💖

[black_bentley]

I've already got the Biggles card game! I'm in Dublin this weekend but will take pics when I get home...

[sholio]

OMG. Yes, I would love to see pictures!

I may have broken down yesterday and ordered it off Ebay.

[ckd]

The mention of rummy-like games reminds me of one of my favorite card game discoveries: The Famous Monarchs of England Card Game ("Famous" is apparently intended to modify "Card Game", it includes non-famous monarchs as well. :-D )

The rummy sets are either monarchs in order of reign or monarchs of the same name in numerical order (sometimes these both apply)...and they made some adjustments, like including "Charles, Prince of Wales" so there would be three Charles-es to make a set from. (This was published during Queen Elizabeth II's reign, obviously.)

However, the really great part is that there is one wild card in the deck. The rules say that "Oliver Cromwell can replace any monarch." (Too soon?)