Buying a Bridge Kit? We’ve Found the Best!
Bridge kits make for an excellent gift. They are one of the best ways to get players who put the game down years ago back into bridge, or inspire someone to pick up the game for the first time. Looking for a hand crafted bridge kit, or a kit that contains 36 decks? Check out our list.
The Basics
Of course, a basic ‘bridge kit’ will simply be a double deck of bridge cards – you need two so one person can shuffle while the other deals. Pair that with a good pencil and a piece of paper and your game is on! However, you might want to add pre-printed score sheets, tallies to help you move your guests if you’re hosting more than one table, bid boxes for every player is nice, and a set of duplicate boards are a great way to pass the hands around a room. We’ve sourced out all these supplies and more below.
Tallies
The easiest way to run a multiple table bridge game is to use Tallies. Tallies are a Rubber Bridge scoring paper designed to track scores during each round of play (often 4 deals) and provide the player table movement directions between rounds. Dee’s Bridge Talliesare printed on smooth, coated, heavy easy-to-write-on card stock and you can find 2 and 3 table gift sets on their website. Or, you DIYers can download free bridge tallies from BridgeHands for 2, 3 and 4 table games.
Card Boxes and Sets
There are so many beautiful card sets, we’ve set up a whole page to feature them. Bridge sets can come in wallets and boxes, with matching pencils and score sheets, find some of our favourites on our Card Accessories page here. These sets make beautiful gifts
ACBL Card Sets
Remember that card sets will always make a great gift for any card player, too. One that’s essential if you’re preparing for a big tournament or game would be this Official ACBL Set that gets sold in sets of 12 decks.
The Starter
The Starter bridge kit is available from the Bridge Shop (an Australian bridge supplies company), and contains everything you’d need to get someone who hasn’t played in a while (or ever) including two decks of playing cards, scoring sheets, a bidding pad, and even a felt tablecloth and bridge table to go with it.
The Entertainer
The Entertainer is another option available from the Bridge Shop, and it’s the “next up” from the starter kit. It contains pretty much everything that the initial starter kit does (including two card decks, scoring sheets, bidding pad, table and tablecloth), but this kit also contains four ceramic mugs – what’s the bridge game without coffee, tea, G&T or whiskey? You might just want to add some coasters, of course.
Bridget’s Bridge Party Sets
These lovely bridge sets include everything you need for a progressive or social bridge party including reusable laminated tallies, playing cards, table numbers, score sheets, pencils – and everything beautifully packaged.
The Complete Duplicate Kit
The Duplicate Kit available from Baron Barclay, advertises as being “for up to 16 players” – and they’re not lying. Among other things, this kit contains 32 duplicate boards and 36 card decks, movements and scoring sheets and even books with information on running your game. This is one of the best options out there for people in need of a bridge kit for charity games or card parties.
Easy Reading Bridge Set
The Easy Reading Bridge Set is available from Simon Lucas Bridge Supplies, and it’s a great card deck with a special feel. It’s more than just a card deck with an altered font. It’s the kind of card deck that you won’t find anywhere else.
Curated Collections Bridge Sets
Looking for a luxurious bridge set? The Curated Collections bridge sets available from Simon Lucas Bridge Supplies fits the description. These are absolutely gorgeous – and you just have to browse over to their website to see why.
Bid Boxes
Bid Boxes are becoming a must even for a friendly game of kitchen bridge. A set of 4 is usually $35-40 USD. I gifted my elderly parents with bid boxes and after a very short time they were loving them at their Friday evening social bridge games.
Most bridge shops will carry bid boxes. You can find a list, sorted geographically, on our Bridge Essentials page. Or you can find them on this Amazon Bridge Bid Boxes page which ships around the world.
But be sure to check out this stunning set of four Thuya wood boxes gorgeously packaged in a fabric lined presentation box, complete with Jannersten best-quality 100% plastic bidding cards. We didn’t know how badly we wanted one of these bridge kits until we saw it: If you have a special bridge player in your life (or anyone who has a love for playing cards or hand crafted wooden objects) then you should be taking a look at this. These bridge kits are made from Moroccan Thuja Wood – yes, we had to look this up – and they’re entirely hand crafted and polished. Is this on your wish list yet?
Amazon’s Bridge Party Kit
This all-in-one bridge kit includes 2 sets of bid boxes, 12 duplicate boards, and 12 decks of cards. All you need to add would be paper and pencil!
