Antique German Playing Cards, Schwarzer Peter playing cards. Forty-five cards and instructions (German language) with original Box.

Antique German Playing Cards, Schwarzer Peter playing cards. Forty-five cards and instructions (German language) with original Box.

Nürnberg-Doos 1899

Black Peter is the English name of the European game of Schwarzer Peter which originated in Germany where, along with Quartett, it is one of the most common children's card games. Old Maid is similar in concept to Black Peter and may have derived from it.

The name Black Peter may be derived from the robber, Johann Peter Petri, a contemporary and accomplice of Johannes Bückler, the notorious German highwayman known as Schinderhannes. Petri also went under the nickname of "Old Black Peter" (der alte Schwarzpeter) or just "Black Peter" (Schwarzer Peter) and is supposed to have invented the game while in prison after 1811. However, the origin of the game may be older.

The origin of Black Peter is unclear, although legend has it that it was invented in gaol by the notorious criminal, Black Peter, in 1811. Its rules are recorded as early as 1821 in Das Neue Königliche L'Hombre, considerably before those of the English game of Old Maid, a "newly invented game" whose earliest rules appeared in 1884, and the French game of Vieux Garçon ("Old Boy"), first recorded in 1853. It is probably much older and once a simple gambling game in which the aim was to determine a loser who had to pay for the next round of drinks (cf. drinking game). The game employs a pack of 32 French cards, Black Peter being, in the earliest rules, the Jack of Spades, the other black Jack having been removed. The player who is last in and left holding Black Peter is the loser and may originally have had to pay for the next round.