It never ceases to amaze me how wonderful some of the German carved sets can be. The companies certainly hired some of the best talent around to come up with designs. Wood sets, typically thought of as the low end of the product line, were not ignored. Designers came up with wonderful interpretations.  This set would be a delight in anyone's collection. We saw another set a while ago, owned by Mim. This one is just as special.

 

The Bams still have their vibrant colors, but take a look at the unique design images. The Evens have Horizontal and Vertical orientations,  but the Odds are diagonals. To me, the 7 and the 9 look a bit like Peacocks. The One Bam bird looks a bit like a pigeon, with a rounded tummy.

 

These Dots make me smile. From 1-9, no Dots are the same pattern. They are all unique, varying from elaborate stars on the One Dot to simple circle with a dot center on the 8 Dot.

 

These Craks tho are just fabulous. Look at all of the energy they radiate. Each one has great style: the wan characters, and both Arabic and Chinese numbers. It is not often I fall for a set because of the Craks, but this is one such set. The style is very German as well.

 

 

The Winds carry on with that wonderful flair we saw on the Craks. You will note the letter "O" on some of the tiles: in German East is Ost. The Dragons are a bit difficult to make out tho it is clear their heads are up at the top of the tiles. The blank ones are the White Dragons. The Flowers are surprisingly simple (The bottom right one is upside down, which I think makes it look a bit like an alien creature with two big eyes!) You will see the Orientation points here as well, because one of the styles of play gives points for Flowers if they are the same for your seat or the round being played.

 

It came in these little cardboard drawers, with counting sticks and dice.

 

Notice how tiny the tiles are compared to the Chinese Bakelite one on the rack in the top of the photo: the tile on the right is the one for this set.

 

Here is the maker of the set, certainly not a company I have seen before. Look carefully at the box top and you will see a sparrow to the left of the label-this is "the game of sparrows, of course!"

Most of you see how the designs on the tiles are not truly centered. Our tiles expert Tony Watson weighed in with how they designs were done: a metal tool was dabbed with a paint-soaked pad and then pressed onto the block of tiles, which are then sawn to size. You can sometimes see how they didn't get the registration correct, either in the stamping or the sawing (or both).

I wrote this back in 2018, and cannot remember where the images came from. Apologies for not giving credit.