Quartets is a

dedicated deck card game A dedicated deck card game is one played with a deck specific to that game, rather than a pack of standard playing cards. Educational packs of cards were being printed by the late eighteenth century, initially designed merely to inform, but later b ...

with the object to collect 4 cards in a series, similar to

Go Fish Go Fish or Fish is a card game for approximately two to five players, often played by children. It might be similar to a game called ''Andare e piscere'' which was current in Italy at the end of the 15th Century, of which no contemporary descrip ...

and

Happy Families Happy families is a traditional British card game usually with a specially made set of picture cards, featuring illustrations of fictional families of four, most often based on profession, occupation types. The object of the game, which is simi ...

. Each pack originally contained 32 cards, divided into 8 groups of 4 cards, unlike a normal 52 pack of playing cards, but the number of groups changed from company to company. A version of the game was published by the Austrian card game company

Piatnik Wiener Spielkartenfabrik Ferd. Piatnik & Söhne, commonly referred to as Piatnik, is an Austrian playing card and board game manufacturing company based in Vienna. History The company was founded in 1824 by the card manufacturer Anton Moser (1 ...

during the 1960s,Top Trumps History and Game Rules
/ref> and later released by ,

Ace An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or a club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the ...

Waddingtons Waddingtons was a British manufacturer of card and board games. The company was founded by John Waddington of Leeds, England and the manager, actor and playwright Wilson Barrett, under the name ''Waddingtons Limited''. The name was changed i ...

and other companies. The game went on to inspire

Top Trumps ''Top Trumps'' is a card game first published in 1978. Each card contains a list of numerical data, and the aim of the game is to compare these values to try to trump and win an opponent's card. A wide variety of different packs of ''Top Tru ...

Gameplay

Quartets is played with three or more players, with the aim to win

quartets In music, a quartet (, , , , ) is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers. Classical String quartet In classical music, one of the most common combinations of four instruments in chamber music is the string quartet. String quar ...

(sets of four). Each card usually has a number and letter (1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, 2A, 2B etc. ) in the top right or left corner of the card. The cards are shuffled and an equal number are dealt to all the players, who hold them without revealing their hand to other player's. The player to the dealer's left starts by asking another player if they had a certain card (example, card 4C) which would help the player create a quartet. If the player does have the card, then they hand it over. If the player does not have the card, then it becomes their turn to ask. When a quartet is created, or a complete quartet was dealt, then the cards creating the quartet are placed in front of the player. The game ends when all the quartets have been created. The winner is the person with the most quartets.

References

Quartet group Card games introduced in the 1960s Dedicated deck card games {{card-game-stub