From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some typical Anglo-American playing cards from the Bicycle brand

Set of 52 Anglo-American style playing cards

Paul Cézanne - The Card Players, 1895

A playing card is a typically hand-sized piece of heavy paper or thin plastic. A complete set of cards is a pack or deck. A deck of cards is used for playing one of many card games, some of which constitute gambling. Because they are both standard and commonly available, playing cards are often adapted for other uses, such as magic tricks, cartomancy, encryption, boardgames, or building a house of cards.

The front (or "face") of each card carries markings that distinguish it from the other cards and determine its use under the rules of the game being played. The back of each card is identical for all cards in any particular deck, and usually of a plain color or abstract design. The back of playing cards is often used for advertising. For most games, the cards are assembled into a deck, and their order is randomized by shuffling.

[edit] History

[edit] Early history

Playing cards emerged in 9th century China.^[1][2] Ancient Chinese "money cards" have four "suits": coins (or cash), strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), myriads of strings, and tens of myriads. These were represented by ideograms, with numerals of 2–9 in the first three suits and numerals 1–9 in the "tens of myriads". Wilkinson suggests that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for.^[3] The designs on modern Mahjong tiles likely evolved from those earliest playing cards. However, it may be that the first deck of cards ever printed was a Chinese domino deck, in whose cards we can see all the 21 combinations of a pair of dice. In Kuei-t'ien-lu, a Chinese text redacted in the 11th century, we find that dominoes cards were printed during the T’ang dynasty, contemporary to the first books. The Chinese word pái (牌) is used to describe both paper cards and gaming tiles.

An Indian origin for playing cards has been suggested by the resemblance of symbols on some early European decks (traditional Sicilian cards, for example) to the ring, sword, cup, and baton classically depicted in the four hands of Indian statues.^{[citation needed]} This is an area that still needs research.

The time and manner of the introduction of cards into Europe are matters of dispute. The 38th canon of the council of Worcester (1240) is often quoted as evidence of cards having been known in England in the middle of the 13th century, but the games de rege et regina (on the king and the queen) there mentioned are now thought to more likely have been chess.

If cards were generally known in Europe as early as 1278 , it is very remarkable that Petrarch, in his work De remediis utriusque fortunae (On the remedies of good/bad fortunes) that treats gaming, never once mentions them. Boccaccio, Chaucer and other writers of that time specifically refer to various games, but there is not a single passage in their works that can be fairly construed to refer to cards. Passages have been quoted from various works, of or relative to this period, but modern research leads to the supposition that the word rendered cards has often been mistranslated or interpolated.

It is likely that the precursor of modern cards arrived in Europe from the Mamelukes of Egypt in the late 1300s, by which time they had already assumed a form very close to that in use today. In particular, the Mameluke deck contained 52 cards comprising four "suits": polo sticks, coins, swords, and cups. Each suit contained ten "spot" cards (cards identified by the number of suit symbols or "pips" they show) and three "court" cards named malik (King), nā'ib malik (Viceroy or Deputy King), and thānī nā'ib (Second or Under-Deputy). The Mameluke court cards showed abstract designs not depicting persons (at least not in any surviving specimens) though they did bear the names of military officers.

A complete pack of Mameluke playing cards was discovered by L.A. Mayer in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum, Istanbul, in 1939 [1]; this particular complete pack was not made before 1400, but the complete deck allowed matching to a private fragment dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century. In effect it’s not a complete deck, but there are cards of three different packs of the same style ^[4]() There is some evidence to suggest that this deck may have evolved from an earlier 48-card deck that had only two court cards per suit, and some further evidence to suggest that earlier Chinese cards brought to Europe may have travelled to Persia, which then influenced the Mameluke and other Egyptian cards of the time before their reappearance.

It is not known whether these cards influenced the design of the Indian cards used for the game of Ganjifa, or whether the Indian cards may have influenced these. Regardless, the Indian cards have many distinctive features: they are round, generally hand painted with intricate designs, and comprise more than four suits (often as many as thirty two, like a deck in the Deutsches Spielkarten-Museum, painted in the Mewar, a city in Rajasthan, between the 18th and 19th century. Decks used to play have from eight up to twenty different suits).

[edit] Spread across Europe and early design changes

Italians playing cards, Sancai-type bowl, Northern Italy, mid-15th century.

In the late 14th century, the use of playing cards spread rapidly throughout Europe. Documents mentioning cards date from 1371 in Spain, 1377 in Switzerland, and 1380 in many locations including Florence, Paris, and Barcelona [2] [3]. A 1369 Paris ordinance [on gaming?] does not mention cards, but its 1377 update does. In the account books of Johanna, duchess of Brabant and Wenceslaus of Luxemburg, an entry dated May 14, 1379, reads: "Given to Monsieur and Madame four peters, two forms, value eight and a half moutons, wherewith to buy a pack of cards". In his book of accounts for 1392 or 1393, Charles or Charbot Poupart, treasurer of the household of Charles VI of France, records payment for the painting of three sets of cards.

The earliest cards were made by hand, like those designed for Charles VI; this was expensive. Printed woodcut decks appeared in the 15th century. The technique of printing woodcuts to decorate fabric was transferred to printing on paper around 1400 in Christian Europe, very shortly after the first recorded manufacture of paper there, while in Islamic Spain it was much older. The earliest dated European woodcut is 1418. No examples of printed cards from before 1423 survive. But from about 1418 to 1450[4], professional card makers in Ulm, Nuremberg, and Augsburg created printed decks. Playing cards even competed with devotional images as the most common uses for woodcut in this period.

Most early woodcuts of all types were coloured after printing, either by hand or, from about 1450 onwards, stencils. These 15th century playing cards were probably painted.

The Master of the Playing Cards worked in Germany from the 1430s with the newly invented printmaking technique of engraving. Several other important engravers also made cards, including Master ES and Martin Schongauer. Engraving was much more expensive than woodcut, and engraved cards must have been relatively unusual.

Modern French-style 78-card Tarot

In the 15th century in Europe, the suits in playing cards varied; typically a deck had four suits, although five suits were common and other structures are also known. In Germany, hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns became the standard suits and are still used in Eastern and Southeastern German decks today for Skat and other games. Italian and Spanish cards of the 15th century used swords, batons, cups, and coins. The Tarot, which included extra trump cards, was invented in Italy in the 15th century.

The four suits (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs) now used in most of the world originated in France in approximately 1480 . The trèfle (club) was probably copied from the acorn and the pique (spade) from the leaf of the German suits. (The names "pique" and "spade", however, may have derived from the sword of the Italian suits[5]). In England, the French suits were eventually used, although the earliest decks had the Italian suits[Chatto, link not provided].

Modern Austrian-style 54-card Tarock

Also in the 15th century, Europeans changed the court cards to represent European royalty and attendants, originally "king", "chevalier", and "knave" (or "servant"). In a German pack from the 1440s, Queens replace Kings in two of the suits as the highest card. Fifty-six-card decks containing a King, Queen, Knight, and Valet were common.

Court cards designed in the 16th century in the manufacturing centre of Rouen became the standard design in England, while a Parisian design became standard in France. Both the Parisian and Rouennais court cards were named after historical and mythological heroes and heroines. The Parisian names have become more common in modern use, even with cards of Rouennais design.

[edit] Paris court cards traditional names

King of Spades: David
King of Hearts: Charles (possibly Charlemagne, or Charles VII, where Rachel would then be the pseudonym of his mistress, Agnès Sorel)
King of Diamonds: Julius Caesar
King of Clubs: Alexander the Great

Queen of Spades: Pallas
Queen of Hearts: Judith
Queen of Diamonds: Rachel (either biblical, historical (see Charles above), or mythical as a corruption of the Celtic Ragnel, relating to Lancelot below)
Queen of Clubs: Argine (possibly an anagram of regina, which is Latin for queen, or perhaps Argea, wife of Polybus and mother of Argus)

Knave of Spades: Ogier the Dane/Holger Danske (a knight of Charlemagne)
Knave of Hearts: La Hire (comrade-in-arms to Joan of Arc, and member of Charles VII's court)
Knave of Diamonds: Hector
Knave of Clubs: Judas Maccabeus, or Lancelot

[edit] Later design changes

In early games the kings were always the highest card in their suit. However, as early as the late 14th century special significance began to be placed on the nominally lowest card, now called the Ace, so that it sometimes became the highest card and the Two, or Deuce, the lowest. This concept may have been hastened in the late 18th century by the French Revolution, where games began being played "ace high" as a symbol of lower classes rising in power above the royalty.^{[citation needed]} The term "Ace" itself comes from a dicing term in Anglo-Norman language, which is itself derived from the Latin as (the smallest unit of coinage). Another dicing term, trey (3), sometimes shows up in playing card games.

Corner and edge indices enabled people to hold their cards close together in a fan with one hand (instead of the two hands previously used). For cards with Latin suits the first pack known is a deck printed by Infirerra and dated 1693 (International Playing Cards Society Journal 30-1 page 34), but were commonly used only at the end of 18th century. Indices in the Anglo-American deck were used from 1875, when the New York Consolidated Card Company patented the Squeezers, the first cards with indices that had a large diffusion. However, the first deck with this innovation was the Saladee's Patent, printed by Samuel Hart in 1864). Before this time, the lowest court card in an English deck was officially termed the Knave, but its abbreviation ("Kn") was too similar to the King ("K"). However, from the 1600s on the Knave had often been termed the Jack, a term borrowed from the game All Fours where the Knave of trumps is termed the Jack. All Fours was considered a low-class game, so the use of the term Jack at one time was considered vulgar. The use of indices changed the formal name of the lowest court card to Jack.

This was followed by the innovation of reversible court cards. This invention is attributed to a French card maker of Agen, main city in the Lot-et-Garonne department, that in 1745 had this idea. But the French government, which controlled the design of playing cards, prohibited the printing of cards with this innovation. In central Europe (trappola cards), Italy (tarocchino bolognese) and in Spain the innovation was adopted during the second half of 18th century. In Great Britain the deck with reversible court cards was patented in 1799 by Edmund Ludlow and Ann Wilcox. The Anglo-American pack with this design was printed around 1802 by Thomas Wheeler (International Playing Cards Society Journal XXVII-5 p. 186 and International Playing Cards Society Journal 31-1 p. 22). Reversible court cards meant that players would not be tempted to turn upside-down court cards right side up. Before this, other players could often get a hint of what other players' hands contained by watching them reverse their cards. This innovation required abandoning some of the design elements of the earlier full-length courts.

During the French Revolution, the traditional design of Kings, Queens, and Jacks became Liberties, Equalities, and Fraternities. The radical French government of 1793 and 1794 saw themselves as toppling the old regime and a good revolutionary would not play with Kings or Queens, but with the ideals of the revolution at hand. This would ultimately be reversed in 1805 with the rise of Napoleon.

A transformation playing card from the 1895 Vanity Fair deck

In the 19th century, a type of card known as a transformation playing card became popular in Europe and America. In these cards, an artist incorporated the pips of the non-face cards into an artistic design.

The joker is an American innovation. Created for the Alsatian game of Euchre, it spread to Europe from America along with the spread of Poker. The joker was ideated around 1865 by Samuel Hart. The initial denomination of the card was Best or Imperial Bower (Bauer or Boer in German language is the name of the jack of trump in the game of Euchre). From the Alsatian name of the game, Juker, derived the actual appellative of the card. Although the joker card often bears the image of a fool (possibly derived from the stereotypical village idiot), which is one of the images of the Tarot deck, it is not believed that there is any relation. In contemporary decks, one of the two jokers is often more colorful or more intricately detailed than the other, though this feature is not used in most card games. The two jokers are often differentiated as "Big" and "Little," or more commonly, "Red" and "Black." In many card games the jokers are not used. Unlike face cards, the design of jokers varies widely. Many manufacturers use them to carry trademark designs.

In the twentieth century, a means for coating paper cards with plastic was invented, and has taken over the market, producing a durable product. An example of what the old cardboard product was like is documented in Buster Keaton's silent comedy The Navigator, in which the forlorn comic tries to shuffle and play cards during a rainstorm. Cards made entirely of plastic were also developed, and are known for their increased durability over plastic-coated cards.

[edit] Symbolism

Playing cards have been used as vehicles for political statements. Here, a playing card of the French Revolution symbolising freedom of cult and brotherhood.

Popular legend holds that the composition of a deck of cards has religious, metaphysical, or astronomical significance: typical numerological elements of the explanation are that the four suits represent the four seasons, the 13 cards per suit are the 13 phases of the lunar cycle, black and red are for day and night, the 52 cards of the deck (joker excluded) symbolizes the number of weeks in a year, and finally, if the value of each card is added up — and 1 is added, which is generally explained away as being for a single joker — the result is 365, the number of days in a year. The context for these stories is sometimes given to suggest that the interpretation is a joke, generally being the purported explanation given by someone caught with a deck of cards in order to suggest that their intended purpose was not gambling (Urban Legends Reference Pages article). The first known publication of this type was "The Mystic Test Book, or the Magic of the Cards" by Olney H. Richmond in 1893, Chicago. A further supplement was published as "Sacred Symbols of the Ancients" by Edith L. Randall and Florence Evylinn Campbell in 1947. Many students attended seminars in California. Other authors include Milton A. Pottenger, Willis F. Whitehead, Arne Lein, Robert Lee Camp, Iain McLaren-Owens, Thomas Morrell, Geri Sullivan & Saffi Crawford, and Sharon Jeffers.

[edit] Playing cards today

See also Suit (cards)

[edit] Anglo-American-French

The primary deck of fifty-two playing cards in use today, called French deck in most languages but Anglo-American playing cards in English, includes thirteen ranks of each of the four French suits, spades (♠), hearts (♥), diamonds (♦) and clubs (♣), with reversible Rouennais court cards. Each suit includes an ace, depicting a single symbol of its suit; a king, queen, and jack, each depicted with a symbol of its suit; and ranks two through ten, with each card depicting that many symbols (pips) of its suit. Two (sometimes one or four) Jokers, often distinguishable with one being more colorful than the other, are included in commercial decks but many games require one or both to be removed before play. Modern playing cards carry index labels on opposite corners (rarely, all four corners) to facilitate identifying the cards when they overlap.

Card games (solitaire, especially) are frequently standard features on computers (seen here a GNOME version of solitaire).

The fanciful design and manufacturer's logo commonly displayed on the Ace of Spades began under the reign of James I of England, who passed a law requiring an insignia on that card as proof of payment of a tax on local manufacture of cards. Until August 4, 1960, decks of playing cards printed and sold in the United Kingdom were liable for taxable duty and the Ace of Spades carried an indication of the name of the printer and the fact that taxation had been paid on the cards.^[5] The packs were also sealed with a government duty wrapper.

Though specific design elements of the court cards are rarely used in game play, a few are notable. The Jack of Spades, Jack of Hearts, and King of Diamonds are drawn in profile, while the rest of the courts are shown in full face, these cards are commonly called "one-eyed". When deciding which cards are to be made wild in some games, the phrase, "acey, deucey, one-eyed jack," is sometimes used, which means that aces, twos, and the one-eyed jacks are all wild. Another such variation, "deuces, aces, one-eyed faces," is used to indicate aces, twos, the Jack of Hearts, the Jack of Spades, and the King of Diamonds are wild. The King of Hearts is shown with a sword behind his head, making him appear to be stabbing himself, and the axe held by the King of Diamonds is behind his head with the blade facing toward him. This leads to the nickname "suicide kings". The Jack of Diamonds is sometimes known as "laughing boy". The King of Diamonds is armed with an axe while the other three kings are armed with swords. The King of Diamonds is sometimes referred to as "the man with the axe" because of this. This is the basis of the trump "one-eyed jacks and the man with the axe". The Ace of Spades, unique in its large, ornate spade, is sometimes said to be the death card, and in some games is used as a trump card. The Queen of Spades appears to hold a scepter and is sometimes known as "the bedpost queen."

There are theories about who the court cards represent. For example, the Queen of Hearts is believed by some to be a representation of Elizabeth of York - the Queen consort of King Henry VII of England. The United States Playing Card Company suggests that in the past, the King of Hearts was Charlemagne, the King of Diamonds was Julius Caesar, the King of Clubs was Alexander the Great, and the King of Spades was the Biblical King David. However the Kings, Queens and Jacks of standard Anglo-American cards today do not represent anyone. They stem from designs produced in Rouen before 1516 and by 1540-67 these Rouen designs show well executed pictures in the court cards with the typical court costumes of the time. In these early cards the Jack of Spades, Jack of Hearts and King of Diamonds are shown from the rear, with their heads turned back over the shoulder so that they are seen in profile. However, the Rouen cards were so badly copied in England that the current designs are gross distortions of the originals.

Other oddities such as the lack of a moustache on the King of Hearts also have little significance. The King of Hearts did originally have a moustache but it was lost by poor copying of the original design. Similarly the objects carried by the court cards have no significance. They merely differentiate one court card from another and have also become distorted over time.

The most common sizes for playing cards are poker size (2½in × 3½in; 62 mm × 88 mm, or B8 size according to ISO 216) and bridge size (2¼in × 3½in, approx. 56 mm × 88 mm), the latter being more suitable for games such as bridge in which a large number of cards must be held concealed in a player's hand. Interestingly, in most casino poker games, the bridge-sized card is used. Other sizes are also available, such as a smaller size (usually 1¾in × 2⅝in, approx. 44 mm × 66 mm) for solitaire and larger ones for card tricks.

Some decks include additional design elements. Casino blackjack decks may include markings intended for a machine to check the ranks of cards, or shifts in rank location to allow a manual check via inlaid mirror. Many casino decks and solitaire decks have four indices instead of the usual two. Many decks have large indices, largely for use in stud poker games, where being able to read cards from a distance is a benefit and hand sizes are small. Some decks use four colors for the suits in order to make it easier to tell them apart: the most common set of colors is black (spades ♠), red (hearts ♥), blue (diamonds ♦) and green (clubs ♣).

When giving the full written name of a specific card, the rank is given first followed by the suit, e.g., "Ace of Spades". Shorthand notation may list the rank first "A♠" (as is typical when discussing poker) or list the suit first (as is typical in listing several cards in bridge) "♠AKQ". Tens may be either abbreviated to T or written as 10.

Example set of 52 playing cards; 13 of each suit clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades

	Ace	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Jack	Queen	King
Clubs:
Diamonds:
Hearts:
Spades: