625 Impossible Animals
I had forgotten about this little box.
Then, a few months ago, I found it again at Daniel's in Szentgotthárd, among the sort of things that have a habit of waiting patiently until somebody notices them.
The box is a Tier-Legespiel No. 289, made in Vienna by Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne. On the lid it promises 625 lustige Kombinationen, 625 amusing combinations.
The principle could hardly be simpler. Each illustrated card forms half of a creature or scene. Put the correct halves together and everything is approximately as nature intended. Start mixing them and a frog acquires an improbable new body, horses become something else entirely, and respectable animals find themselves involved in situations for which evolution had clearly failed to prepare them.
It is wonderfully analogue nonsense.
There is no screen, no mechanism and almost no rule to learn. The entertainment comes from rearranging a small number of beautifully illustrated pieces and discovering how ridiculous the next combination can become.
The name on the box belongs to one of Vienna's great survivors. Piatnik's origins go back to a card-painting workshop established in Vienna in 1824. Ferdinand Piatnik, who had learned the card-making trade in Budapest, eventually took over the workshop, and in 1882 the business became Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne. By the end of the nineteenth century it had moved from handcraft to industrial production. The company still makes games and playing cards in Vienna today.
That history gives this rather silly little box a larger geography.
Vienna and Budapest were never very far apart in the world of Piatnik, and decades later this particular game somehow ended up in Szentgotthárd, a Hungarian town almost pressed against the Austrian border.
How it travelled there, who bought it, and which children once sat making impossible animals from these cards, I don't know.
That is the part I rather like.
When I found it again at Daniel's, the cards were still in their original box, slightly worn but remarkably complete-looking. Somebody had kept them. Somebody else had eventually let them go. And now, after perhaps seventy years of being shuffled, stored and forgotten, they have acquired another temporary home.
Not every object in The Cabinet needs to be rare or valuable.
Sometimes 625 impossible animals are quite enough.
THE OBJECT
Object: Tier-Legespiel No. 289
Maker: Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne
Probable date: c. 1950s–60s
Origin: Vienna, Austria
Material: Printed card and cardboard
Contents: Illustrated combination cards in original box
Found: Daniel's, Szentgotthárd, Hungary
Estimated value: €15–30
And for the index page, I'd use:
625 Impossible Animals
A small Viennese game promising 625 ridiculous creatures, rediscovered decades later in Szentgotthárd. Proof that an object doesn't have to be valuable to deserve another life.STATUS: COLLECTION
This object is currently not for sale.
