Quartet card game : Astronomisches Quartettspiel : Liverpool POW Camp

Boxed card game with instruction sheet. The game consists of 15 sets of four cards (or quartets), each of which is illustrated with a depiction, in dark blue and yellow, of a constellation or group of planets. A different star or planet is highlighted and described on each of the four cards of each quartet. The quartets are: 1. Andromeda; 2. Grosser Bar; 3. Kleiner Bar, Drache, Cassiopeja; 4. Bootes und Krone; 5. Fuhrmann und Perseus; 6. Grosser Hund und Jungfrau; 7. Kleiner Hund und Grosser Lowe; 8. Orion; 9. Pegasus; 10. Adler, Schwan, Leyer, Herkules; 11. Stier; 12. Zwillinge; 13. Die 4 inneren Planeten; 14. Die 4 ausseren Planeten (two cards are missing from this set); 15. untitled - depicts the four quarters of the moon. The reverse of the cards is plain pale green. The box is made in the form of a pair of nestling cases and is bound in a brown light buckram. The lower case is provided with a cotton tape set into the base to assist in removing the cards. A coloured version of the '4 outer planets' card is pasted to the lid. The folded instructions, printed in German, list this game as O.M. 115 and provide instructions for play on the inside, while the outside is printed with the title and maker's details on the recto and a list of other Ravensburg quartet games on the verso.

'Astronomy Quartet Card Game' belonging to a German who was interned at Liverpool prisoner of war camp, NSW, during the First World War and collected in 1919 by the Public Library of NSW and the MItchell Library, Sydney. From 1915 Liverpool camp held those 'of enemy nationality or sympathies, about three quarters of whom were Germans' - 'some 1,100 were sailors and about 850 from Singapore, Hong Kong and Ceylon, and 130 from the British and German islands in the Pacific. A further 3,272 were German subjects previously resident in Australia and 393 were naturalised Germans.' (from 'Australia During the War' by Ernest Scott, p 115).

There is unfortunately no information regarding the identity of the owner. The cards were produced by Ravenburger Games company, a publishing company established by Otto Robert Maier of Ravensburg in 1883 and who patented the Ravensburger trademark name in 1900. By the start of the First World War, the company listed over 800 games in its inventory, many of which were of an educational nature. This example, known as a 'Quartet' game is essentially the German version of 'Fish' or 'Happy Families', wherein each player collects cards from other players by asking for them, with the object of collecting sets of cards, usually sets of four of the same rank. The 'Astronomy Quartet Game' is one of 17 listed on the reverse of the small instruction leaflet accompanying this game. The constellations depicted on the cards would have proved of little practical use to the user in Australia as they all depict northern hemisphere groups.