College

This 1908 card game published in Philadelphia is based on the rivalry between Cornell, Princeton, Yale and University of Pennsylvania. The 60-card deck is divided into four suits of 15, each representing one of the four colleges. In addition to being numbered from 1 to 15, each suit contains cards with letters spelling out the name of its college. The object of the game is to complete the name of one of the four colleges using only the letters from its suit.

Players are dealt five cards each, and five more go face-up on the field between them. Each player on his turn has the opportunity to capture cards on the field by playing a card that adds up to the same number (e.g. a 13 can be played to capture a 9 and 4). He plays until unable to capture any more, and then adds one of the cards from his hand to the field. When a player exhausts his hand, he gets a new hand of five cards.

Players must declare which college they are playing for, and if there is competition for one, the first player to get the 15 of that suit takes over and the other player must go after a different college.

Letter cards of the desired college are placed in front of the player as successfully used or captured, and the remaining cards go into a discard stack which becomes the replacement deck when needed. While two colleges have only four letters (PENN and YALE), the values of the letter cards ensure that each college is as hard to complete as the others (e.g. PENN has letter cards of 12, 13, 14 and 15, while PRINCETON includes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 and 15).