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Karl Friedrich May
OLD SHATTERHAND QUARTETT, Germany: s.n., s.d.

This set of thirty-six playing cards is illustrated with color halftone prints of various cowboy and Indian scenes in the American West. The prints are based upon the works of Karl May and are housed in a red and white box.

There are nine "suits" of cards, identified by the use of roman numerals (I-IX), and each bearing a unique symbol. Each of the nine suits has a distinctive title, such as "I. Old Surehand," "II. Satan and Ischariot," and "III. Auf fremden Pfaden."

Each suit contains four numbered cards, 1-4. The reverse side of the cards is adorned with drawings of a variety of Indian artifacts, including necklaces, peace pipes, moccasins, and weapons.

Karl May first visited the United States in 1908, four years before his death and nearly forty years after he had begun writing about the two heroic comrades Winnetou, the Apache, and Old Shatterhand, the German author, whose first name was Karl.

May gained fame in the 1890s with the appearance of his short story collections and novels, and he became one of the world's all-time best-selling fiction writers.

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May's heroes drew on archetypes of Germanic culture and had little to do with true Native American cultures.

Winnetou is noble because he combines the highest aspects of otherwise "decadent" Indian cultures with the natural adoption of the romantic and Christian traits of Karl May's own vision of German civilization. As he is dying, the Apache Winnetou asks some settlers to sing an Ave Maria for him, and his death is sanctified by his quiet conversion to Christianity.