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122-656: The most common type of playing card in the West is the French-suited , standard 52-card pack , of which the most widespread design is the English pattern , followed by the Belgian-Genoese pattern . However, many countries use other, traditional types of playing card, including those that are German , Italian , Spanish and Swiss-suited . Tarot cards (also known locally as Tarocks or tarocchi ) are an old genre of playing card that

244-524: A Catalan language rhyme dictionary which lists naip among words ending in -ip . According to Denning, the only attested meaning of this Catalan word is "playing card". This suggests that cards may have been "reasonably well known" in Catalonia (now part of Spain) at that time, perhaps introduced as a result of maritime trade with the Mamluk rulers of Egypt. The earliest record of playing cards in central Europe

366-511: A standard 52-card deck these are the valet ( knave or jack ), the dame ( lady or queen ), and the roi ( king ). In addition, in Tarot packs , there is a cavalier ( knight ) ranking between the queen and the jack. Aside from these aspects, decks can include a wide variety of regional and national patterns, which often have different deck sizes . In comparison to Spanish , Italian , German , and Swiss playing cards , French cards are

488-458: A suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated by the color printed on the card. The rank for each card is determined by the number of pips on it, except on face cards . Ranking indicates which cards within a suit are better, higher or more valuable than others, whereas there

610-414: A deck in which each card has a rank and a suit (usually represented by a color), and for each suit there is exactly one card having each rank, though in many cases the deck has various special cards as well. Decks for some games are divided into suits, but otherwise bear little relation to traditional games. An example would be the board game Taj Mahal , in which each card has one of four background colors,

732-462: A disrupted ranking and cards with varying privileges which may range from full to none and which may depend on the order they are played to the trick. For example, chosen Sevens may be unbeatable when led, but otherwise worthless. In Swedish Bräus some cards are even unplayable. In games where the number of chosen suits is less than four, the others are called unchosen suits and usually rank in their natural order. Whist-style rules generally preclude

854-505: A hobby or for monetary value. Playing cards were probably invented during the Tang dynasty around the 9th century, as a result of the usage of woodblock printing technology. The reference to a leaf game in a 9th-century text known as the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang ( Chinese : 杜阳杂编 ; pinyin : Dùyáng zábiān ), written by Tang dynasty writer Su E, is often cited in connection to

976-467: A joker functioning as a wild card dates to 1875 with a variation of poker. Playing cards were also some of the earliest products to be sold in packaging. Early card packs were sold in paper sleeves held closed with a string. The 19th century saw the apparition of progressively more complex cardboard packaging, with tuck-flap boxes becoming common by the end of the century. Cellophane wrappers were common by 1937. The Japanese video game company Nintendo

1098-453: A large diffusion. This was followed by the innovation of reversible court cards. This invention is attributed to a French card maker of Agen in 1745. But the French government, which controlled the design of playing cards, prohibited the printing of cards with this innovation. In central Europe ( Trappola cards) and Italy ( Tarocco Bolognese ) the innovation was adopted during the second half of

1220-509: A lightened sentence. Because of the long history and wide variety in designs, playing cards are also collector's items. In 1911, the New York Times described May King Van Rensselaer 's playing card collection of over 900 decks as the largest in the world. According to Guinness World Records , the largest playing card collection comprises 11,087 decks and is owned by Liu Fuchang of China. Individual playing cards are also collected, such as

1342-509: A pack with edge indices and Latin suits was printed by Infirerra and dated 1693. However, this feature was commonly used only from the end of the 18th century. The first American-manufactured (French) deck with this innovation was the Saladee's Patent, printed by Samuel Hart in 1864. In 1870, he and his cousins at Lawrence & Cohen followed up with the Squeezers, the first cards with indices that had

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1464-569: A seated " king ", an upper marshal that held his suit symbol up, and a lower marshal that held it down. The latter two correspond with the Ober and Unter cards still found today in German and Swiss playing cards . The Italians and Iberians replaced the Ober / Unter system with the " Knight " and " Fante " or " Sota " before 1390, perhaps to make the cards more visually distinguishable. In England,

1586-525: A sword and the Jack of Spades a cane. The backs usually have ornate, often floral, designs. They were made by ASS Altenburger (as "Baronesse"), by VEB Altenburger (as "Rokoko") and Coeur in the past. The earliest examples had no corner indices; they appeared from about 1906 onwards. Since 1914, Piatnik have produced a derivative pattern for several of their patience packs that are referred to as Rococo playing cards. Suit (cards) In playing cards ,

1708-611: A total of 32 cards. It is popular in France, the Low Countries , Central Europe and is used to play piquet , belote , bezique and skat . Values in Russian 36-card stripped deck (used to play durak and many other traditional games) range from 6 to 10. It is also used in the Sri Lankan, whist -based game known as omi . Forty-card French suited packs are common in northwest Italy; these remove

1830-400: A unique habit of associating their face cards with historical or mythical personages which survives only in the portrait officiel . The Belgian-Genoese pattern is very similar to its Parisian parent and is basically an export version not subject to France's domestic stamp tax. Hence they lack the usual French court card names such as Alexander, Judith and Lancelot. Other differences from

1952-410: Is a compromise deck devised to allow players from East Germany (who used German suits) and West Germany (who adopted the French suits) to be comfortable with the same deck when playing tournament Skat after the German reunification . This is a list of suit systems devised by early Swiss-German cardmakers mentioned by Michael Dummett : Other suit systems: A large number of games are based around

2074-633: Is a non-existent title so it may not have been in the earliest versions; without this rank, the Mamluk suits would structurally be the same as a Ganjifa suit. In fact, the word "Kanjifah" appears in Arabic on the king of swords and is still used in parts of the Middle East to describe modern playing cards. Influence from further east can explain why the Mamluks, most of whom were Central Asian Turkic Kipchaks , called their cups tuman , which means "myriad" (10,000) in

2196-591: Is believed by some researchers to be a ban on card games in the city of Bern in 1367, but this source is disputed as the earliest copy available dates to 1398 and may have been amended. Generally accepted as the first Italian reference is a Florentine ban dating to 1377. Also appearing in 1377 was the treatise by John of Rheinfelden , in which he describes playing cards and their moral meaning. From this year onwards more and more records (usually bans) of playing cards occur, first appearing in England as early as 1413. Among

2318-518: Is evidence of playing cards there from at least the 1450s and French suits were invented sometime after 1470. This would then explain why the English renamed French suits to the Latin ones with which they were familiar. Hence the clovers were called clubs and pikes were named after the swords ( spade ). The English started producing their own cards a century later. In 1628, the importation of foreign playing cards

2440-405: Is highly automated. Large sheets of paper are glued together to create a sheet of pasteboard ; the glue may be black or dyed another dark color to increase the card stock's opacity . In the industry, this black compound is sometimes known as "gick". Some card manufacturers may purchase pasteboard from various suppliers; large companies such as USPCC create their own proprietary pasteboard. After

2562-407: Is in reverse order with 9 of coins being the lowest going up to 1 of coins as the high card. Despite the wide variety of patterns, the suits show a uniformity of structure. Every suit contains twelve cards with the top two usually being the court cards of king and vizier and the bottom ten being pip cards . Some decks can contain 8 suits to make a 96-card deck, like the deck for Ganjifa . Half

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2684-615: Is inconclusive as to which, however the Italian-suited cards are closest in appearance to the Mamluk cards and the Spanish design appears to be simplification. The polo sticks depicted in one of the suits used by the Mamluks were modified by the Italians into ceremonial batons; these were changed in the Spanish design to wooden clubs. The earliest European mention of playing cards appears in 1371 in

2806-868: Is no order between the suits unless defined in the rules of a specific card game . In most decks, there is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit. A deck may include special cards that belong to no suit, often called jokers . While English-speaking countries traditionally use cards with the French suits of Clubs , Spades , Hearts and Diamonds , many other countries have their own traditional suits. Much of central Europe uses German suited cards with suits of Acorns , Leaves , Hearts and Bells ; Spain and parts of Italy and South America use Spanish suited cards with their suits of Swords , Batons , Cups and Coins ; German Switzerland uses Swiss suited cards with Acorns, Shields , yellow Roses and Bells; and many parts of Italy use Italian suited cards which have

2928-696: Is one card, the Fool or Excuse , which may be part of the trump suit depending on the game or region. These cards do not have pips or face cards like the other suits. Most tarot decks used for games come with French suits but Italian suits are still used in Piedmont, Bologna, and pockets of Switzerland. A few Sicilian towns use the Portuguese-suited Tarocco Siciliano , the only deck of its kind left in Europe. The esoteric use of Tarot packs emerged in France in

3050-530: Is recognised by card players. In divinatory, esoteric and occult tarot , the Minor Arcana, and the suits by extension, are believed to represent relatively mundane features of life. The court cards may represent the people whom one meets. Each suit also has distinctive characteristics and connotations commonly held to be as follows: In a large and popular category of trick-taking games , one suit may be designated in each deal to be trump and all cards of

3172-523: Is represented by one card, giving for example 4 suits × 13 ranks = 52 cards , each card in a Set deck has four classifications each into one of three categories, giving a total of 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 81 cards. Any one of these four classifications could be considered a suit , but this is not really enlightening in terms of the structure of the game. Card suit symbols occur in places outside card playing: In computer and other digital media , suit symbols can be represented with character encoding , notably in

3294-461: Is still very popular in France, central and Eastern Europe and Italy. Customised Tarot card decks are also used for divination ; including tarot card reading and cartomancy . Asia, too, has regional cards such as the Japanese hanafuda , Chinese money-suited cards , or Indian ganjifa . The reverse side of the card is often covered with a pattern that will make it difficult for players to look through

3416-544: Is the most well known pattern in the world. It is also called the International or Anglo-American pattern. Patterns do not factor in Jokers , which came about in the early 20th century. Almost all 52-card packs produced in the present will contain at least two jokers, sometimes more. In Germany, packs produced for the game of Zwicker have six jokers. The Paris pattern came to dominate in France around 1780 and became known as

3538-508: Is the national pattern of Belgium. Genoese type cards are identical to Belgian ones and often lack corner indices. They come in 36 (lacking 2s to 5s), 40 (lacking 8s to 10s) or 52-card packs. The Piedmontese pattern is similar to the Genoese packs but its face cards have a horizontal instead of diagonal dividing line and the aces are found in a decorative garland. They also come in the same number of cards as Genoese ones. The Piedmontese pattern

3660-456: Is then split into individual uncut sheets , which are cut into single cards and sorted into decks. The corners are then rounded, after which the decks are packaged, commonly in tuck boxes wrapped in cellophane . The tuck box may have a seal applied. Card manufacturers must pay special attention to the registration of the cards, as non- symmetrical cards can be used to cheat. Airlines have produced playing cards to give to passengers since

3782-614: Is used in Patience decks by many companies worldwide. The court cards are dressed in rococo period costumes and wear powdered wigs. The Kings are crowned and carry state regalia or, in the case of the King of Hearts, a pair of spectacles. The Queens, also crowned, sport jewellery; the Queen of Spades coquettishly brandishes a folding fan and the Queen of Diamonds a peacock feather fan. The Jacks are young gentlemen with tricorn hats. The Jack of Hearts carries

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3904-493: Is used most often for fishing-type games and the Komatsufuda and Kabufuda decks that are used for gambling. In hanafuda, the role of rank and suit in organizing cards became switched, so the deck has 12 suits, each representing a month of the year, and each suit has 4 cards, most often two normal, one Ribbon and one Special (though August, November and December each differ uniquely from this convention). In komatsufuda and kabufuda,

4026-414: The portrait officiel . From the 19th century to 1945, the appearance of the cards used for domestic consumption was regulated by the French government. All cards were produced on watermarked paper made by the state to show payment of the stamp tax . The most common deck sold in France is the 32-card deck with the 2 to 6 removed and 1s as the index for aces. 52-card packs are also popular. The French have

4148-587: The Albert Field Collection of Playing Cards, an archive of over 6,000 individual decks from over 50 countries and dating back to the 1550s. In 2018 the university digitized over 100 of its decks. Since 2017, Vanderbilt University has been home to the 1,000-volume George Clulow and United States Playing Card Co. Gaming Collection , which has been called one of the "most complete and scholarly collections [of books on cards and gaming] that has ever been gathered together". Journals and magazines dedicated to

4270-621: The German and Swiss suit-systems. The French suits are a derivative of the German suits but are generally considered a separate system. The earliest card games were trick-taking games and the invention of suits increased the level of strategy and depth in these games. A card of one suit cannot beat a card from another regardless of its rank. The concept of suits predates playing cards and can be found in Chinese dice and domino games such as Tien Gow . Chinese money-suited cards are believed to be

4392-534: The Latin-suited and German-suited cards , all have three male face cards. Queens began appearing in Italian tarot decks in the mid-15th century and some German decks replaced two kings with queens. While other decks abandoned the queen in non-tarot decks, the French kept them and dropped the knight as the middle face card. Face card design was heavily influenced by Spanish cards that used to circulate in France. One of

4514-653: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , is the oldest complete set of ordinary playing cards made in Europe from the 15th century. As cards spread from Italy to Germanic countries, the Latin suits were replaced with the suits of leaves (or shields), hearts (or roses), bells, and acorns. France initially used Latin-suited cards and the Aluette pack used today in western France may be a relic of that time, but around 1480, French card manufacturers, perhaps in order to facilitate mass production, went over to very much simplified versions of

4636-534: The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Fifteenth-century scholar Lu Rong described it is as being played with 38 "money cards" divided into four suits : 9 in coins , 9 in strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), 9 in myriads (of coins or of strings), and 11 in tens of myriads (a myriad is 10,000). The two latter suits had Water Margin characters instead of pips on them with Chinese to mark their rank and suit. The suit of coins

4758-634: The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (in 2008), Delaware's Department of Correction , the Florida Department of Law Enforcement , and Rhode Island 's Department of Corrections , among others. The Indiana Department of Correction sells cold case cards in prisons, and in 2024, Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers created cold case playing cards, distributing 2,500 decks. Among inmates, they may be called "snitch cards". Prisoners with information may be motivated to come forward in order to receive

4880-702: The Rhineland pattern. The kings have very thick beards. They have fallen out of popularity in Germany but are very common in Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the Baltic states . They come in decks of 24 (no 2s to 8s), 32 (no 2s to 6s), or 52 cards, the latter of which may have up to three jokers in some countries. In 1895, Dondorf produced a deck on behalf of Adolph Wulff of Denmark. The king of diamonds holds an orb while

5002-622: The Russian Empire or Soviet Union . Adler-Cego is the last remaining animal tarot and is used in Germany's Black Forest to play Cego . The courts are based on a Frankfurt version of a Bavarian derivative. It is sold with 54 cards; the 5 to 10 of the red suits and the 1 to 6 of the black suits are removed. Real and fictional animals are displayed on the trump suit. Trumps have a pink panel in each end with an Arabic numeral to show its rank. The Industrie und Glück ("Diligence and Fortune") tarock deck of Central Europe uses Roman numerals for

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5124-499: The Topkapı Palace , Istanbul , in 1939. It is not a complete set and is actually composed of three different packs, probably to replace missing cards. The Topkapı pack originally contained 52 cards comprising four suits: polo-sticks, coins, swords, and cups. Each suit contained ten pip cards and three court cards, called malik (king), nā'ib malik (viceroy or deputy king), and thānī nā'ib (second or under-deputy). The thānī nā'ib

5246-473: The portrait officiel are that: the jack of clubs has a triangular shield bearing the coat of arms of the former Spanish Netherlands (this is the main distinguishing feature); blue is usually replaced with green in the portraits and the diagonal dividing line lacks the beads. When the Ottoman Empire relaxed the ban against playing cards, Belgian type cards flooded their territory and are now found throughout

5368-462: The stamp duty like the ace of spades in England, the ace of clubs in France or the ace of coins in Italy are also collectible as that is where the manufacturer's logo is usually placed. Typically, playing cards have indices printed in the upper-left and lower-right corners. While this design does not restrict which hand players hold their cards, some left-handed players may prefer to fan their cards in

5490-400: The "leaf" game existed at least since the mid-Tang dynasty and associated its invention with the development of printed sheets as a writing medium. However, Ouyang also claims that the "leaves" were pages of a book used in a board game played with dice, and that the rules of the game were lost by 1067. Other games revolving around alcoholic drinking involved using playing cards of a sort from

5612-415: The 18th century. In Great Britain, the pack with reversible court cards was patented in 1799 by Edward Ludlow and Ann Wilcox. Not being registered card-makers, they worked with printer Thomas Wheeler to produce a French-suited pack using this patent, which was first sold in 1801. Sharp corners wear out more quickly, and could possibly reveal the card's value, so they were replaced with rounded corners. Before

5734-442: The 1920s, with the practice reaching a zenith in the 1960s and 1970s. However, the practice has become less common in recent decades. Delta Air Lines has created several series of decks, with several featuring art by Daniel C. Sweeney, John Hardy, and Jack Laycox. Gambling corporations commonly have playing cards made specifically for their casinos. As casinos consume many decks daily, they sometimes resell used cards that were "on

5856-455: The 8s through 10s like Latin-suited decks. 24-card decks, removing 2s through 8s are also sold in Austria and Bavaria to play Schnapsen . A pinochle deck consists of two copies of a 24-card schnapsen deck, thus 48 cards. The 78-card Tarot Nouveau adds the knight card between queens and jacks along with 21 numbered trumps and the unnumbered Fool . Today the process of making playing cards

5978-595: The Asian continent and later came into Egypt. The oldest surviving cards in the world are four fragments found in the Keir Collection and one in the Benaki Museum . They are dated to the 12th and 13th centuries (late Fatimid , Ayyubid , and early Mamluk periods). A near complete pack of Mamluk playing cards dating to the 15th century, and of similar appearance to the fragments above, was discovered by Leo Aryeh Mayer in

6100-782: The Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East. They are also commonly found in France's former colonies. Within Belgium, the Francophone Walloons are the primary users of this pattern, while the Flemish prefer the Dutch pattern. This is the second most common pattern in the world after the English pattern. Belgian packs come in either 32 or 52 cards as they do in France. It was named the Belgian-Genoese pattern because of its popularity in both places and

6222-501: The French suits, give each suit a different color to make the suits more distinct from each other. In bridge , such decks are known as no- revoke decks, and the most common colors are black spades, red hearts, blue diamonds and green clubs, although in the past the diamond suit usually appeared in a golden yellow-orange. A pack occasionally used in Germany uses green spades (comparable to leaves), red hearts, yellow diamonds (comparable to bells) and black clubs (comparable to acorns). This

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6344-405: The German suit symbols. A combination of Latin and Germanic suit pictures and names resulted in the French suits of trèfles (clovers), carreaux (tiles), cœurs (hearts), and piques (pikes) around 1480. The trèfle (clover) was probably derived from the acorn and the pique (pike) from the leaf of the German suits. The names pique and spade , however, may have derived from

6466-532: The German suits around 1480. French suits correspond closely with German suits with the exception of the tiles with the bells but there is one early French deck that had crescents instead of tiles. The English names for the French suits of clubs and spades may simply have been carried over from the older Latin suits. Beginning around 1440 in northern Italy, some decks started to include an extra suit of (usually) 21 numbered cards known as trionfi or trumps , to play tarot card games . Always included in tarot decks

6588-472: The International or Anglo-American pattern. Playing cards arrived in Europe from Mamluk Egypt around 1370 and were already reported in France in 1377. The French suit insignia was derived from German suits around 1480. Between the transition from the suit of bells to tiles there was a suit of crescents. One of the most distinguishing features of the French cards is the queen. Mamluk cards and their derivatives,

6710-491: The Latin suits. One early deck had five suits, the Latin ones with an extra suit of shields. The Swiss-Germans developed their own suits of shields, roses, acorns, and bells around 1450. Instead of roses and shields, the Germans settled with hearts and leaves around 1460. The French derived their suits of trèfles (clovers or clubs ♣ ), carreaux (tiles or diamonds ♦ ), cœurs (hearts ♥ ), and piques (pikes or spades ♠ ) from

6832-519: The Netherlands itself. Its most distinguishing feature are scenic aces. Also found in Flanders , they come in decks of 32 (no twos to sixes) or 52 cards. The Trente et Quarante pattern is named after the game it is associated with. Unlike other patterns, it is usually found only in casinos. Although of German origin, this pattern is now produced only in Italy. They consist of 52 cards and no indices. Around 1870, Dondorf of Frankfurt produced

6954-717: The North-German pattern's Hamburg parent but their most distinguishing characteristic is that instead of having corner indices, white Arabic numerals are found within the pips closest to the corner. French-Swiss cards comes only in decks of 36 with no ranks from two to five. The Modern Portuguese pattern is a Parisian derivative from Germany. When it arrived in Portugal, the kings and jacks in hearts and diamonds swapped suits. The composition consists of 52 cards or until recently 40 cards. The latter had an unusual ranking (ace, king, jack, queen, eight, six–two). The jack ranking higher than

7076-536: The Tang dynasty onward. However, these cards did not contain suits or numbers. Instead, they were printed with instructions or forfeits for whoever drew them. The earliest dated instance of a game involving cards occurred on 17 July 1294 when the Ming Department of Punishments caught two gamblers, Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog, playing with paper cards. Wood blocks for printing the cards were impounded, together with nine of

7198-563: The Turkic, Mongolian, and Jurchen languages. Wilkinson postulated that the cups may have been derived from inverting the Chinese and Jurchen ideogram for "myriad", 万 , which was pronounced as something like man in Middle Chinese . The Mamluk court cards showed abstract designs or calligraphy not depicting persons possibly due to religious proscription in Sunni Islam , though they did bear

7320-550: The United States and other countries have created decks of cards that feature photos, names, and details of cold case victims or missing persons on each card. These decks are sold in prison commissaries , or even to the public, in the hopes that an inmate (or anyone else) might provide a new lead. Cold case card programs have been introduced in over a dozen states, including by Oklahoma 's State Bureau of Investigation , Connecticut 's Division of Criminal Justice (five editions),

7442-520: The United States but more commonly found in Australia and New Zealand contains 11s, 12s, and red 13s to play the six-handed version of the Euchre variant 500 . In the late nineteenth century, they were also used for variants of draw poker and royal cassino . Decks marketed for Canasta often have card point values printed on the cards. Lyon was a major card exporter to German-speaking countries from

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7564-430: The [casino] floor". The cards sold to the public are altered, either by cutting the deck's corners or by punching a hole in the deck, to prevent them from being used for cheating in the casino. Casinos may also sell decks separately as a souvenir item — one notable example is Jerry's Nugget playing cards , released in 1970. Police departments, local governments, state prison systems, and even private organizations across

7686-444: The account books of Johanna, Duchess of Brabant and Wenceslaus I, Duke of Luxembourg , an entry dated May 14, 1379, by receiver general of Brabant Renier Hollander reads: "Given to Monsieur and Madame four peters and two florins, worth eight and a half sheep, for the purchase of packs 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

7808-435: The actual cards. William Henry Wilkinson suggests that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which doubled as both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for, similar to trading card games. Using paper money was inconvenient and risky so they were substituted by play money known as "money cards". One of the earliest games in which we know the rules is madiao , a trick-taking game , which dates to

7930-492: The cards, which impacted sales due to the low replacement rate. As a solution, Nintendo produced a cheaper and lower-quality line of playing cards, Tengu , while also conducting product offerings in other cities such as Osaka , where card game profits were high. In addition, local merchants were interested in the prospect of a continuous renewal of decks, thus avoiding the suspicions that reusing cards would generate. Columbia University 's Rare Book and Manuscript Library holds

8052-436: The clubs represented polo sticks; Europeans changed that suit, as polo was an obscure sport to them. The Latin suits are coins, clubs, cups, and swords. They are the earliest suit-system in Europe, and were adopted from the cards imported from Mamluk Egypt and Moorish Granada in the 1370s. There are four types of Latin suits: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and an extinct archaic type. The systems can be distinguished by

8174-531: The crowns of the kings truncated by the frames of the cards and no discernible dividing line. The court figures are highly ornamented. Today's version by Piatnik is based on an 1885 Type A design by Neumayer. Type C was the earliest of three Vienna pattern types that were around at the turn of the 19th century. It originated in Sopron and Saxony and went on to become the standard pattern in Bohemia before giving way in

8296-459: The day. They are usually in decks of 32 cards with the twos to sixes missing since skat , Germany's most popular card game, does not require a full deck. Decks of 36 cards (with the sixes) are for jass and tapp , a game played in Baden-Württemberg . Decks of 52 cards usually include three jokers but Zwickern decks have six jokers. The French-Swiss pattern shares the same descent from

8418-696: The deck are similar to Piedmontese tarot games but the ace ranked between the jack and the 10 like in Triomphe . Another playing card deck named after Piedmont is the Italian-suited Tarocco Piemontese , used in Tarot card games . A Parisian variant appeared in Bavaria in the mid-18th century where the king of diamonds wore a turban . This originates from the German-suited Old Bavarian pattern . The king of spades, who represents David in

8540-482: The designs of the suits became much more abstract. The latter much moreso to the point where the suit does not matter (only rank) and the face cards indistinguishable; thus becoming a single-suited deck with ranks 1-10 and the designs quadruplicated. Unsun karuta did not face the same restrictions and instead developed an additional suit and additional ranks. During the 15th-century, manufacturers in German speaking lands experimented with various new suit systems to replace

8662-399: The desired imagery is etched into printing plates , the art is printed onto each side of the pasteboard sheet, which is coated with a textured or smooth finish, sometimes called a varnish or paint coating. These coatings can be water- or solvent-based, and different textures and visual effects can be achieved by adding certain dyes or foils, or using multiple varnish processes. The pasteboard

8784-523: The early 20th-century, the firm Öberg & Son invented a new pattern unrelated to the old ones. This pattern has spread to neighboring Finland. The clothing for the figures in the court cards are color coordinated; green for spades, red for hearts, purple for clubs, and blue for diamonds. They are used in the standard 52-card format. Card makers from Rouen began exporting to England around 1480. According to David Parlett , Latin-suited cards must have already been circulating in England since there

8906-570: The early patterns of playing card were those derived from the Mamluk suits of cups, coins, swords, and polo sticks, which are still used in traditional Latin decks . As polo was an obscure sport to Europeans then, the polo-sticks became batons or cudgels. In addition to Catalonia in 1371, the presence of playing cards is attested in 1377 in Switzerland , and 1380 in many locations including Florence and Paris . Wide use of playing cards in Europe can, with some certainty, be traced from 1377 onward. In

9028-628: The existence of playing cards. However the connection between playing cards and the leaf game is disputed. The reference describes Princess Tongchang, daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang , playing the "leaf game" in 868 with members of the Wei clan, the family of the princess's husband . The first known book on the "leaf" game was called the Yezi Gexi and allegedly written by a Tang woman. It received commentary by writers of subsequent dynasties. The Song dynasty (960–1279) scholar Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072) asserts that

9150-507: The face cards but the number of cards per deck, the use of numeric indices, or even minor shape and arrangement differences of the pips can be used to distinguish them. Some patterns have been around for hundreds of years. Jokers are not part of any pattern as they are a relatively recent invention and lack any standardized appearance so each publisher usually puts its own trademarked illustration into their decks. The wide variation of jokers has turned them into collectible items. Any card that bore

9272-423: The game of Spoil Five . In some games, such as blackjack , suits are ignored. In other games, such as Canasta , only the color (red or black) is relevant. In yet others, such as bridge, each of the suit pairings are distinguished. In contract bridge , there are three ways to divide four suits into pairs: by color , by rank and by shape resulting in six possible suit combinations. Some decks, while using

9394-499: The highest trump card is the Jack of the trump suit, called the right bower (from the German Bauer ); the second-highest trump, the left bower , is the jack of the suit of the same color as trumps. The joker was invented c. 1860 as a third trump, the imperial or best bower , which ranked higher than the other two bowers . The name of the card is believed to derive from juker , a variant name for euchre. The earliest reference to

9516-884: The king. Packs of 56 cards containing in each suit a king, queen, knight, and knave (as in tarot) were once common in the 15th century. In 1628, the Mistery of Makers of Playing Cards of the City of London (now the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards ) was incorporated under a royal charter by Charles I ; the Company received livery status from the Court of Aldermen of the City of London in 1792. The Company still exists today, having expanded its member ranks to include "card makers... card collectors, dealers, bridge players, [and] magicians". During

9638-491: The last with corner indices and three jokers. The Lombard or Milanese pattern come in 40-card decks that is missing the 8s, 9s, and 10s and lack corner indices. The Lombard decks exported to Swiss Italian regions contain corner indices and also labels the ranks of the face cards. It is probably derived from the Lyonnais pattern and its offshoot, the extinct Provence pattern. The Tuscan or Florentine pattern, dating from

9760-628: The late 16th through the 18th centuries. While the Lyonnais pattern died out in most places, it survived in Austria and the Czech Republic and its modern incarnation is the Vienna pattern. Five types are recorded by the International Playing Card Society , all of them double-headed. Type A, also called the 'Large Crown' version of the pattern, emerged in the early 1800s and was based on the double-headed, Lyons export pattern, but with

9882-458: The late 18th century, since when special packs intended for divination have been produced. These typically have the suits cups, pentacles (based on the suit of coins), wands (based on the suit of batons), and swords. The trump cards and Fool of traditional card playing packs were named the Major Arcana ; the remaining cards, often embellished with occult images, were the Minor Arcana. Neither term

10004-458: The local language but most decks of the Paris pattern use the numeral "1" for aces. The French suited pack has spawned many regional variations known as standard patterns based on their artwork and deck size. The Paris pattern was heavily exported throughout continental Europe which is why most French-suited patterns share a similar appearance. The English pattern, based on the extinct Rouennais pattern,

10126-453: The lower cards beating the higher. In Ganjifa, progressive suits were called "strong" while inverted suits were called "weak". In Latin decks, the traditional division is between the long suits of swords and clubs and the round suits of cups and coins. This pairing can be seen in Ombre and Tarot card games . German and Swiss suits lack pairing but French suits maintained them and this can be seen in

10248-506: The lower ones beat the higher ones. In the Indo-Persian game of Ganjifa , half the suits were also inverted, including a suit of coins. This was also true for the European games of Tarot and Ombre . The inverting of suits had no purpose in terms of play but was an artifact from the earliest games. These Turko-Arabic cards, called Kanjifa , used the suits coins, clubs, cups, and swords, but

10370-438: The lowest court card was called the " knave " which originally meant male child (compare German Knabe ), so in this context the character could represent the " prince ", son to the king and queen; the meaning servant developed later. Queens appeared sporadically in packs as early as 1377, especially in Germany. Although the Germans abandoned the queen before the 1500s, the French permanently picked it up and placed it under

10492-486: The market not wanting to be associated with criminal ties, but Nintendo founder Fusajiro Yamauchi continued, becoming the largest producer of hanafuda within a few years. With the increase of the cards' popularity, Yamauchi hired assistants to mass-produce to satisfy the demand. Even with a favorable start, the business faced financial struggle due to operating in a niche market , the slow and expensive manufacturing process, high product price, alongside long durability of

10614-471: The mid 16th century, Portuguese traders introduced playing cards to Japan. The first indigenous Japanese deck was the Tenshō karuta named after the Tenshō period . Packs with corner and edge indices (i.e. the value of the card printed at the corner(s) or edges of the card) enabled players to hold their cards close together in a fan with one hand (instead of the two hands previously used). An early example of

10736-441: The mid-19th century to Type D, also called the 'Small Crown' version of the Vienna pattern, since the crowns of the kings are visible in their entirety within the card frame. Type E appeared in the 1860s and, again, the crowns are partially cut off by the frames of the cards. It appears to have died out in the 1960s. Today the Vienna pattern in Austria comes in pack of 24 (lacking the 2s to 8s), 32 (lacking 2s to 6s), or 52 cards,

10858-501: The mid-19th century, British, American, and French players preferred blank backs. The need to hide wear and tear and to discourage writing on the back led cards to have designs, pictures, photos, or advertising on the reverse. The United States introduced the joker into the deck. It was devised for the game of euchre , which spread from Europe to America beginning shortly after the American Revolutionary War . In euchre,

10980-519: The mid-19th century, is the only French-suited deck that is not reversible in the present. Cards measure 58 × 88 mm but the Toscane Grandi by Modiano are 67 × 101 mm large. It has the same composition of cards as the Lombard pattern. There was another pattern called "Tuscan" but it has ceased printing since the 1980s. Dondorf of Frankfurt produced this pattern around 1900 and, today, it

11102-619: The most obvious traits inherited from Spain are the standing kings; kings from Italian, Portuguese , or Germanic cards are seated. Spanish-suited cards are still used in France, mostly in Northern Catalonia , and Brittany and the Vendée with the latter two using the archaic Aluette cards. In the 19th century, corner indices and rounded corners were added and cards became reversible, relieving players from having to flip face cards right-side up. The index for aces and face cards usually follow

11224-470: The most widespread due to the geopolitical, commercial, and cultural influence of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. Other reasons for their popularity were the simplicity of the suit insignia, which simplifies mass production, and the popularity of whist and contract bridge . The English pattern of French-suited cards is so widespread that it is also known as

11346-442: The necessity of determining which of two cards of different suits has higher rank, because a card played on a card of a different suit either automatically wins or automatically loses depending on whether the new card is a trump. However, some card games also need to define relative suit rank. An example of this is in auction games such as bridge , where if one player wishes to bid to make some number of heart tricks and another to make

11468-554: The object is to avoid taking tricks containing hearts. With typical rules for Hearts (rules vary slightly) the queen of spades and the two of clubs (sometimes also the jack of diamonds) have special effects, with the result that all four suits have different strategic value. Tarot decks have a dedicated trump suit. Games of the Karnöffel Group have between one and four chosen suits , sometimes called selected suits or, misleadingly, trump suits. The chosen suits are typified by having

11590-447: The older decks, does not hold a harp. This group is closely associated with animal tarots . The Russian pattern created during the early 19th-century is based on a Baltic version of a Bavarian derivative. The current appearance was finalized by Adolf Charlemagne . It usually contains 52 or 36 cards, the latter lacking ranks 2 to 5. The stripped deck is used to play Durak . They can be found in many countries that were once part of

11712-557: The oldest ancestor to the Latin suit system. The money-suit system is based on denominations of currency : Coins , Strings of Coins, Myriads of Strings (or of coins), and Tens of Myriads. Old Chinese coins had holes in the middle to allow them to be strung together. A string of coins could easily be misinterpreted as a stick to those unfamiliar with them. By then the Islamic world had spread into Central Asia and had contacted China, and had adopted playing cards. The Muslims renamed

11834-717: The opposite direction. Some designs exist with indices in all four corners. French decks come in a variety of patterns and deck sizes. The 52-card deck is the most popular deck and includes 13 ranks of each suit with reversible "court" or face cards. Each suit includes an ace , depicting a single symbol of its suit, a king, queen, and jack, each depicted with a symbol of their suit; and ranks two through ten, with each card depicting that number of pips of its suit. As well as these 52 cards, commercial packs often include between one and six jokers, most often two. Decks with fewer than 52 cards are known as stripped decks . The piquet pack has all values from 2 through 6 in each suit removed for

11956-414: The original Mamluk deck, while Latin and Germanic decks average fewer. Latin decks usually drop the higher-valued pip cards, while Germanic decks drop the lower-valued ones. Within suits, there are regional or national variations called "standard patterns." Because these patterns are in the public domain , this allows multiple card manufacturers to recreate them. Pattern differences are most easily found in

12078-573: The other hand holding a sceptre. The North-German pattern was created in Stralsund from a Hamburg derivative. It is familiarly known as the Berlin pattern , although this name arose from a misunderstanding about the origin of the cards which were formerly labelled as Berliner Spielkarten based on a finishing process used by that company. The crownless queens' hairstyles reflect the Biedermeier fashions of

12200-530: The other kings hold scepters. Many of the court designs were altered or swapped for the Swedish market. Presently, this pattern is printed only by Piatnik of Austria for export to Finland, which is why it is also known as the Finnish pattern . It is an amalgam of the original Dondorf and revised Swedish designs with the court indices numbered from 11 to 13. It comes in 52-card decks with three jokers. The Bourgeois Tarot

12322-510: The painting of three sets of cards. From about 1418 to 1450 professional card makers in Ulm , Nuremberg , and Augsburg created printed decks. Playing cards even competed with devotional images as the most common uses for woodcuts 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 Flemish Hunting Deck , held by

12444-569: The pips of their long suits: swords and clubs. Despite a long history of trade with China, Japan was not introduced to playing cards until the arrival of the Portuguese in the 1540s. Early locally made cards, Karuta , were very similar to Portuguese decks. Increasing restrictions by the Tokugawa shogunate on gambling, card playing, and general foreign influence, resulted in the Hanafuda deck that today

12566-461: The queen comes from the older Portuguese-suited games where a female knave was outranked by the knight . They also use French-language indices. The Dutch pattern originates from Germany and shares the same parent as the Modern Portuguese pattern but with different queens, and has been produced for the Netherlands by Belgian card makers since the 19th century. It has rarely been produced in

12688-417: The ranks on the cards. Nā'ib would be borrowed into French ( nahipi ), Italian ( naibi ), and Spanish ( naipes ), the latter word still in common usage. Panels on the pip cards in two suits show they had a reverse ranking, a feature found in madiao , ganjifa , and old European card games like ombre , tarot , and maw . A fragment of two uncut sheets of Moorish -styled cards of a similar but plainer style

12810-475: The rule being that all the cards played by a single player in a single round must be the same color. The selection of cards in the deck of each color is approximately the same and the player's choice of which color to use is guided by the contents of their particular hand. In the trick-taking card game Flaschenteufel (" The Bottle Imp "), all cards are part of a single sequence ranked from 1 to 37 but split into three suits depending on its rank. players must follow

12932-409: The same number of diamond tricks, there must be a mechanism to determine which takes precedence in the bidding order. There is no standard order for the four suits and so there are differing conventions among games that need a suit hierarchy. Examples of suit order are (from highest to lowest): The pairing of suits is a vestigial remnant of Ganjifa , a game where half the suits were in reverse order,

13054-519: The same suits but different patterns compared with Spanish suited cards. Asian countries such as China and Japan also have their own traditional suits. Tarot card packs have a set of distinct picture cards alongside the traditional four suits. Modern Western playing cards are generally divided into two or three general suit-systems. The older Latin suits are subdivided into the Italian and Spanish suit-systems. The younger Germanic suits are subdivided into

13176-401: The subject of playing cards include: Contemporary playing cards are grouped into three broad categories based on the suits they use: French, Latin, and Germanic. Latin suits are used in the closely related Spanish and Italian formats. The Swiss-German suits are distinct enough to merit their subcategory. Excluding jokers and tarot trumps, the French 52-card deck preserves the number of cards in

13298-467: The suit led, but if they are void in that suit they may play a card of another suit and this can still win the trick if its rank is high enough . For this reason every card in the deck has a different number to prevent ties. A further strategic element is introduced since one suit contains mostly low-ranking cards and another, mostly high-ranking cards. Whereas cards in a traditional deck have two classifications—suit and rank—and each combination

13420-520: The suit of myriads as cups; this may have been due to seeing a Chinese character for "myriad" ( 万 ) upside-down. The Chinese numeral character for Ten ( 十 ) on the Tens of Myriads suit may have inspired the Muslim suit of swords. Another clue linking these Chinese, Muslim, and European cards are the ranking of certain suits. In many early Chinese games like Madiao , the suit of coins was in reverse order so that

13542-432: The suits use reverse ranking for their pip cards. There are many motifs for the suit pips but some include coins, clubs, jugs, and swords which resemble later Mamluk and Latin suits. Michael Dummett speculated that Mamluk cards may have descended from an earlier deck which consisted of 48 cards divided into four suits each with ten pip cards and two court cards. By the 11th century, playing cards were spreading throughout

13664-428: The sword ( spade ) of the Italian suits. In England, the French suits were eventually used, although the earliest packs circulating may have had Latin suits. This may account for why the English called the clovers "clubs" and the pikes "spades". In the late 14th century, Europeans changed the Mamluk court cards to represent European royalty and attendants. In a description from 1377, the earliest courts were originally

13786-475: The translucent material to read other people's cards or to identify cards by minor scratches or marks on their backs. Playing cards are available in a wide variety of styles, as decks may be custom-produced for competitions, casinos and magicians (sometimes in the form of trick decks ), made as promotional items, or intended as souvenirs , artistic works, educational tools, or branded accessories. Decks of cards or even single cards are also collected as

13908-432: The trump suit rank above all non-trump cards, and automatically prevail over them, losing only to a higher trump if one is played to the same trick. Non-trump suits are called plain suits. Some games treat one or more suits as being special or different from the others. A simple example is Spades , which uses spades as a permanent trump suit. A less simple example is Hearts , which is a kind of point trick game in which

14030-533: The trumps. It is organized in the same manner as the Adler-Cego decks. Its trumps feature a newer pattern of more mundane scenes, such as depictions of rural life, than the traditional allegorical motifs found in Italian tarocchi decks. The turban wearing king is now in the suit of spades. French-suited cards are popular in Central Europe and compete very well against local German-suited playing cards . Hamburg

14152-431: The world record collection of 8,520 different jokers belonging to Tony de Santis of Italy. French-suited French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of trèfles (clovers or clubs  ♣ ), carreaux (tiles or diamonds  ♦ ), cœurs (hearts  ♥ ), and piques (pikes or spades  ♠ ). Each suit contains three or four face/court cards . In

14274-451: Was banned to protect local manufacturers. English cardmakers produced lower-quality cards than their continental counterparts leading to the loss of detail from the Rouennais pattern. The English pattern is the result of Charles Goodall and Son 's reworking of the old Rouen pattern during the 19th century. The majority of decks sold in this pattern is the 52-card deck . One deck invented in

14396-668: Was designed by C.L. Wüst of Frankfurt in the mid-19th century. It is popular in Francophone Europe and Quebec and is also used in Denmark to play tarot games that require the full 78-card deck. Like the Industrie und Glück , the trumps depict genre scenes but modern editions use Arabic numerals instead of Roman ones. A 54-card version with different trump designs is used in Baden to play Cego . Swedes used to use Bavarian derived patterns. In

14518-650: Was found in Spain and dated to the early 15th century. Export of these cards (from Cairo, Alexandria, and Damascus), ceased after the fall of the Mamluks in the 16th century. The rules to play these games are lost but they are believed to be plain trick games without trumps . Playing cards probably came to Europe from the East, specifically those used by the Mamluks in Egypt. The cards arrived first either in Italy or Spain. Historical evidence

14640-463: Was founded in 1889 to produce and distribute karuta ( かるた , from Portuguese carta , 'card') , most notably hanafuda ( 花札 , 'flower cards') . Hanafuda cards had become popular after Japan banned most forms of gambling in 1882 but largely left hanafuda untouched. Sales of hanafuda cards were popular with the yakuza -ran gaming parlors in Kyoto. Other card manufacturers had opted to leave

14762-590: Was once a major card-producing hub where makers began revising the Paris pattern to create the Hamburg pattern . Early examples were made by Suhr (1814–28) in Hamburg itself, while other manufacturers of the pattern were based elsewhere in the German Empire, in Austria, Belgium, France, Sweden and Switzerland. The Hamburg cards generated a family of similar patterns, all of which have the King of Spades holding David's harp, with

14884-477: Was once used in neighboring Savoy as both were previously united until France annexed the latter in 1860. A 78-card tarot version of the Piedmontese pattern, complete with knights, the fool , a suit of trumps depicting flowers, and corner indices, was printed in 1902 for Savoyard players. It was discontinued some time after 1910 but reproductions have been in print since 1984. The Chambéry rules that come with

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