• 1
  • 2
hurrengoa
cards    For those of us 30 years of age and older the cards on this page will bring back more than one memory. We never really knew how to distinguish between boys and girls’ games till we started getting spots. When it was playtime, out we went and got straight into whatever game was the ‘in-thing’ at the time: spinning tops, la goma (games played with a long piece of stretchy rubber), skipping ropes, marbles, bottle tops and… cards. There’s little doubt that, along with marbles, cards were the first form of money we used. The world of play was our first introduction to gambling.

You won and lost cards with a single move of your hand. Cards were special graphic objects. Though we hadn’t a bull’s notion then of what ‘graphic’ or ‘object’ meant, we did know that not all cards were worth the same. We split them into different levels according to their drawing, the shape, the colours or if they had a glossy sheen or not. Upon leaving childhood behind and becoming adolescents, these games with cards were suddenly for kids and wimps and as we turned into teenage sports fiends, the cards were dumped in the bin. Well, not everyone did, thankfully there are those who kept them safely stowed away in cardboard boxes under beds and in attics and now, 30 years on, we can once again feast our eyes on these little treasures.