For over a century until 1996, F.X. Schmid was an important German manufacturer of

playing cards A playing card is a piece of specially prepared card stock, heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic that is marked with distinguishing motifs. Often the front (face) and back of each card has a fi ...

(traditional

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ...

s and

quartets In music, a quartet or quartette (, , , , ) is an ensemble of four singers or instrumental performers; or a musical composition for four voices and instruments. Classical String quartet In classical music, one of the most common combinations o ...

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

s and

puzzle A puzzle is a game, Problem solving, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together (Disentanglement puzzle, or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at th ...

s. It was considered one of the major European manufacturers. In 1995, its turnover was 67 million DM and there were around 250 employees. The publishing house has been a wholly owned subsidiary of

Ravensburger Ravensburger AG is a German game and toy company, publishing house and market leader in the European jigsaw puzzle market. History The company was founded by Otto Robert Maier in Ravensburg, a town in Upper Swabia in southern Germany. He began ...

since 1996. The name F.X. Schmid is used today in the field of children's books and playing cards by Ravensburger.

History

German entrepreneur, Franz Xaver Schmid, founded the publishing house in Munich in 1860, which produced toys and cards. The company was then run as the United Munich Playing Card Factories (''Vereinigte Münchener Spielkarten-Fabriken'') in 1915. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the company relocated its headquarters to

Prien am Chiemsee Prien am Chiemsee (official: , High German [], Bavarian (local) dialect []) is a municipality in the Upper Bavarian Rosenheim (district), district of Rosenheim in Germany. The town is a certified Luftkurort, air and Sebastian Kneipp, Kneipp spa o ...

. The manufacture and production of board games and puzzles started there in 1955. In 1977 the site was expanded and there was a branch in the United States. In 1991, the playing card programme of F.X. Schmid was integrated into the production of the

ASS Altenburger ASS Altenburger is since 2003 the trademark of the German playing card manufacturer Spielkartenfabrik Altenburg, based in the town of Altenburg. The firm is owned by Cartamundi, of Turnhout, Belgium. ASS (''Altenburger und Stralsunder Spielkarten ...

in Thuringia. ASS Altenburger was thus involved in its market expansion. In 1996, the company ran into economic difficulties and in 1997 merged with Ravensburger. There, initially under the name ''FX'', an attempt was made to establish its own image as "games for young adults". In 2000, the game series was discontinued in the wake of the decline in sales on the game market. Since about 2002, the F.X. Schmid brand has been used by Ravensburger for children's books. at buchpreis24.de Playing cards for popular games such as Skat and

Schafkopf Schafkopf (), also called Bavarian Schafkopf, is a popular German Trick-taking game, trick-taking card game of the Ace-Ten family for four players that evolved, towards the end of the 19th century, from German Schafkopf. It is still very popular i ...

are still produced under the brand name of F.X. Schmid and it is the last manufacturer of German Tarock playing cards. The cards are of the

Tarot Nouveau The Bourgeois Tarot deck is a mid-19th century pattern of tarot cards of German origin that is still used for playing card games today in western Europe and Canada. It is not designed for divinatory purposes.Baden Baden (; ) is a historical territory in South Germany, in earlier times on both sides of the Upper Rhine but since the Napoleonic Wars only East of the Rhine. History The margraves of Baden originated from the House of Zähringen. Baden is ...

game of

Cego Cego is a Tarot game for three or four players played with eponymous German Tarot playing cards. The game was probably derived from the three-player Badenese tarot game of Dreierles after soldiers returned from the Iberian Peninsula during the Na ...

Successful games (selection)

F.X. Schmid achieved success with numerous games on the German-speaking and international games market, including: * '' Auf Achse'' (

Spiel des Jahres The Spiel des Jahres (, ''Game of the Year'') is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence ...

1987) * ''

Hoity Toity ''Hoity Toity'' (german: Adel Verpflichtet, Noblesse oblige) is a board game created by Klaus Teuber in 1990. Publication history German game designer Klaus Teuber created ''Adel Verpflichtet'' in 1990, and it was published in Germany by F.X. ...

'' (Spiel des Jahres 1990) * ''Bluff'' (Spiel des Jahres 1993) * ''

Torres Torres may refer to: People *Torres (surname), a Spanish and Portuguese surname *Torres (musician), singer-songwriter Mackenzie Scott **Torres (album), ''Torres'' (album), 2013 self-titled album by Torres Places Americas *Torres, Colorado, an un ...

'' (Spiel des Jahres 2000, Label ''FX'') In addition it has published the games of ''

Set! Scheme is a dialect of the Lisp family of programming languages. Scheme was created during the 1970s at the MIT AI Lab and released by its developers, Guy L. Steele and Gerald Jay Sussman, via a series of memos now known as the Lambda Papers. It ...

'', ''Schraumeln'', ''

Phase 10 Phase 10 is a card game created in 1982 by Kenneth Johnson and sold by Mattel, which purchased the rights from Fundex Games in 2010. Phase 10 is based on a variant of rummy known as contract rummy. It consists of a special deck equivalent to ...

'', '' Quarto!'', ''Kuhhandel'', ''Ein solches Ding'' and many others.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:FX Schmid Playing card manufacturers Board game publishing companies Publishing companies of Germany Manufacturing companies based in Munich 1860 establishments in Germany