Touring (card game)


Touring is a specialty card game originally designed by William Janson Roche and patented by the Wallie Dorr Company and produced in 1906. It was acquired by Parker Brothers in 1925.
It is widely believed the popular French card game Mille Bornes was derived from Touring. After several revisions, Touring was discontinued shortly after Parker Brothers picked up the American license of Mille Bornes. However, the game of Touring was reissued by Winning Moves in 2014.

Updates to editions

The original Wallie Dorr edition was a small red box with 100 cards. They updated the game to a side-by-side wider box which Parker Bros used for their first edition of the game after they purchased it.
Periodically the Parker Bros. Co. adjusted the card art and subsequently, the images became more modern, and increased the mileage cards. Until the final edition, game play remained unchanged, just the denominations of miles increased as the trip length and comfort of automobile travel increased. The final edition reversed the trend, using artwork closer to the original Model-T-era cars and adjusting the card totals with an addition of two new delays.

Original rules

The players run a race of 50 or 100 miles, as agreed before the game starts. A player cannot play the mileage cards unless they have a Go card in front of them. If both players are in City Limits, they can't play the 10 Mile card ; they can remove this card's effect by playing the Country! card. They lose 1 or 2 hours if an opponent plays a Collision, Out of Gasoline, or Puncture card and must discard an "hour's" worth of cards for each hour. To resume driving, they must also play a "Remedy" card and a Go card. To win, the player must exactly match the total mileage.

Play variant

In each copy of the directions were an option to play progressive touring, in which multiple tables of 4 would play simultaneously.

Cards of select editions

Type of cardYear of issueCountDenominationChange from previous
Mileage1906201 Milen/a
Mileage1906103 Milesn/a
Mileage1906105 Milesn/a
Mileage19061210 Milesn/a
Delay19063Collisionn/a
Delay19063Out of gasolinen/a
Delay19062Puncturen/a
Remedy19068Hauled inn/a
Remedy19068Gasolinen/a
Movement190615Gon/a
Movement19064City Limitsn/a
Movement19065Countryn/a
Mileage1937191 Mile1c fewer
Mileage1937103 Milesn/c
Mileage19371015 Miles10 mi more than 1906
Mileage19371230 Miles20 mi more than 1906
Delay19373Collisionn/c
Delay19373Out of gasn/c
Delay19372Puncturen/c
Remedy19378Hauled inn/c
Remedy19378Gasolinen/c
Movement193715Gon/c
Movement19374City limitsn/c
Movement19375Countryn/c
Mileage1957195 Mile4 mi more than 1937
Mileage19571015 Miles12 mi more than 1937
Mileage19571025 Miles10 mi more than 1937
Mileage19571245 Miles15 mi more than 1937
Delay19573Collisionn/c
Delay19573Out of gasolinen/c
Delay19572Puncturen/c
Remedy19578Hauled inn/c
Remedy19578Gasolinen/c
Movement195715Gon/c
Movement19574City limitsn/c
Movement19575Countryn/c
Mileage19651925 miles24 mi more than 1937
Mileage19651035 miles32 mi more than 1937
Mileage19651050 miles35 mi more than 1937
Mileage19651275 miles45 mi more than 1937
Delay19653Missed curvereplaced Collision
Delay19653Stopped to refuelreplaced Out of gas
Delay19652Broken springreplaced Puncture
Delay19652Brake adjustmentNew
Delay19652Burning oilNew
Remedy19657Wrecker1¢ less, replaced Hauled in
Remedy19657Gasoline1¢ less than 1937
Movement196513Go2¢ less than 1937
Movement19653Populated area1 less than 1937, replaced City limits
Movement19656Freeway1 more than 1937, replaced Country

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