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by Michael E. Marotta, 4 Sep 1995
In Little Women (I think), the girls play whist for "fish". I have no first hand knowledge of this, so let me explain because it has a numismatic theme.
I brought home a gambling token. My wife has a couple of degrees, one in computer science the other in mathematics, and she is forever running gambling algorithms. (Like Lady Byron in Difference Engine.) Anyway, the "fish" is a mother-of-pearl gambling counter. Handmade to order in China, they carry the family crest of the client. What I do know from pop-lit is that English gentlemen chided each other saying things like "I'm holding your counters for 100 pounds" and so on. I never understood how you could tell one poker chip from another. Then I bought the fish and the dealer let me read several pages out of a book about gambling tokens.
When I brought home the fish, she liked it, saying it was cute and all and looking at it and then <Bing!> the lights went on. "Whist for fish!" she yelled and she ran upstairs. (Life is never dull here.) She came down with Hoopskirts and Bosoms or somesuch chick book and told me about the girls in the story idling their idle bourgerois hours playing "whist for fish". She eventually learned that whist was a card game, but never understood the "fish" until I brought home the counter.
These 18th century trifles fetch $20 to $100. And be careful. They are thin mother-of-pearl. The dealer who sold me this one lost two others in transit.
Whist was still known as late at 1967 in Charleston South Carolina aka the Land that Time Forgot. I told my history professor that since we couldn't get in the Diplomacy game we were going to play RISK. "Playing whist," he said, "I thought only a few of us still did that. You students picked up, did you?"
Michael E. Marotta
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