Jonchets

Jonchets (French, was orig. made of "jonc", engl. rush) is an old pick-up sticks game with carved sticks. In the 17th century it gets mentioned in references and was quite popular at the start of the 20th century. It was made out of rush, wood, bone or ivory.

It's for 2 to 4 players. There are 30 to 40 sticks with a length of 10 cm that may be thrown on the table. The rules may be similar to Jackstraws.

name / value / number of the sticks:

• king, 50 points, 1 stick
• queen, 40 points, 1 stick
• flag, 30 points, 1 stick
• servant, 20 points, 4 sticks
• rider, 10 points, 8 sticks
• soldier, 5 points, 15 - 25 sticks

Mikado (game) may be simplified/inspired variation.

"Jonchets" were also the name of a stick abacus calcus form in France with Asian background [1] [1].