Fish, Preciousssss

Ah, holiday customs. At my house, we’ve developed one we’re very fond of: after exchanging presents and eating Christmas dinner and pulling crackers (we lurrrrve Christmas crackers!) and nibbling at dessert, we usually play a rollicking game of Cards Against Humanity. Although I would dearly love to write a Regency version of CAH some day (imagine the scurrilous things one could come up with to say about Prinny’s personal life!), Regency family games were themselves somewhat less, er, naughty…and also a lot prettier.

Those of you who obsess over details in books (um, like me) might remember certain references in Pride and Prejudice to family games: “…Lydia talked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the fish she had won….” and in Georgette Heyer’s The Grand Sophy: “…Gertrude…and Amabel…cast themselves upon their brother, with loud professions of delight at seeing him, and rather louder reminders to him of a promise he had made them to play at lottery-tickets the very next time he should spend an evening at home….The card-table had been set up, and Amabel was already counting out the mother-of-pearl fishes on its green-baize cloth.”

(Pause to re-read the hilarious ending of The Grand Sophy.)

No, Lydia was not crowing over winning anchovies. Nor was Amabel handing out minnows, but these handsome little guys. The game was called “lottery tickets,” and was a game of pure chance; utilizing two decks of cards, it was played in rounds, and fish-shaped markers were used for placing bets (sort of), with the winner of each round getting the fish.

Aren’t they lovely? These are of mother-of-pearl (which is darned difficult to photograph well, I’ll have you know!), likely made in China, but they were also made of bone and ivory.

Nor were they restricted to just fish shapes (I haven’t been able to discover ‘why fish?’) Here are several circular ones from my collection—again, Chinese mother-of-pearl, some very elegantly engraved. The wealthy would have theirs custom-carved with their initials, coats of arms or other heraldic devices.

And more, not round. Squares, rectangles, ovals, and other shapes are also seen:

I wonder if there’s any way to incorporate my fishy collection into our Cards Against Humanity game next Christmas? Hmm…