The Lost Heir (1908)

Here's one I got a while back, tucked into an old box of The Game of Nations.  (See previous post.)

The rules and history can be found here:
https://healthy.uwaterloo.ca/museum/VirtualExhibits/CardGames/LostHeir/index.html

Check out the page at BoardGameGeek: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5670/lost-heir
Judging from their edition/photo gallery, mine is the 1908 Milton Bradley set.

Anyway, we finally got a chance to sit down and play a few hands.  It's a classic trick-taking card game, so common from that era (1890s to 1940s).  They are not my favorite types onf card games, partly because they play best with four players and we never have four.  I was wondering how the theme would play out, since we're technically playing police personnel searching for a Lost Heir.  

The game play starts with a bid and a dealer who chooses a trump suit.  In this case we tried calling the trup suit the HQ, but kept calling it the trump suit anyway.  Then each trick is simply a player throwing down a card and the other player trying to beat it.  You can beat a card with a higher card of the same color, or by any trump card.  Winner takes the trick of two cards, and it will be worth one point at the end of the hand.  If you have neither, you have to "throw down" a crap card and lose the trick.

Winner of the trick starts the next trick.  The Lost Heir card give +5 and the Wrong Boy card is a -3.  You can throw down the Wrong Boy as a crap card, but you would never thrown down the Lost Heir, except maybe to a temmate in a 4-player game.

That's about it.  It doesn't really work with two players because you know who has which boy right away.  But as you play through the tricks and run onut of suits to play, and manage the cards just right, you should get the chance to throw down the bad boy and keep the good one.  You can't stop the other player from dumping the Wrong Boy on you as the last card.

There are so many of the trick-taking games from those decades, themed with authors, animals, painters, cities, you-name-it.  Sometimes it's fun to just find a historical collectible and play it through to see how games have evolved in the last century.