Sunday, January 15, 2023

 

Wish You Were Here, from Charles Lederer

 

Here's a card from Charles Lederer, dated 1906, but presumably published in 1907 since it is a divided back. No maker is credited but it is likely to be the Monarch Book Company, which published his other cards of this same style. 

These Lederer cards all offer gags using wordplay and slang. This one, I have to admit, mystifies me. If there's some slang meaning to "king full" I don't know what it is; in poker it would be a full house with kings high, but what that would have to do with a gag about drinking I dunno. Little help?

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Comments:
There is a drinking game called Kings that involves a playing cards, but I don't think this is in relation to this.
 
This may be explained by a joke that seems to have been popular in the early 1890s. I find it in several newspapers. The gist of it is there some King who gets drunk and beats his three wives. He gets taken before a judge who exonerates because "a king full always beats three queens". I suppose "a king full" means what in today's poker we'd call a full house, probably with kings.

That's my guess. It's a stretch, though. I don't find it after 1891.

I also wanted to look through some slang dictionaries of the period. Thought I had them bookmarked somewhere on my machine, but can't find them.
 
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