JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

We’ve all heard of the saying, “playing the money card”  but until this morning I’ve never actually see it, so far as I know.  While looking for WWI aerial combat games in the patent records I stumbled across “Capture the Kaiser”, a card game created by Charles Hopkins  (which was entered into the register at the Patent Office in November 1917 and received the patent less than three weeks after the end of the War)–it was a game of pursuit/capture using 45 cards in which players used the various strengths of nations (airplanes, submarines, battleships) to secure the outcome.  It seems pretty much like a standard game of “War” with a few exceptions, one of which was the “finance card”.  It was one of the strongest cards in the deck, or so it seems, rivaling that of another interesting bit, the “fate card”.  In any event, it was interesting to see the root of power portrayed so in a card game for kids.