Mercante in Fiera is a very peculiar Italian card game. Born as a gambling game, today is normally played for small stakes during the traditional Christmas family gatherings. The game is composed by two decks of 40 specially illustrated cards. The two decks are identical and at the beginning of the game the Mercante (one of the player acting as a "merchant") takes three cards out of one deck. These are the winning ones. Now he puts up for auction the cards of the second deck. He can choose to sell single cards or group of two or more. When all the cards are sold, the money paid by players become the final prize and are divided between the three winning cards. Now the Mercante takes the second deck and starts drawing cards. Every card drawn can't be one of the winning and during this phase the players are free to bet, sell their cards or whatever they like, until the end.
There are many versions of this game on the market, differing from the number of the cards and the subjects depicted. This year Editrice Giochi has launched a new edition of this classic game with a traditional double 40 cards deck and 200 small wooden "coins". The 40 cards have been illustrated by Marianna Fulvi and Elena Prette of KG Studio.
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