   #copyright

Playing card

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Games

   Some typical Anglo-American playing cards from the Bicycle brand
   Enlarge
   Some typical Anglo-American playing cards from the Bicycle brand
   Set of 52 playing cards
   Enlarge
   Set of 52 playing cards

   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 include
   gambling. Because they are both standard and commonly available,
   playing cards are often adapted for other uses, such as magic tricks,
   cartomancy, 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, usually
   a plain colour or abstract design. In most games, the cards are
   assembled into a deck, and their order is randomized by shuffling

History

Early history

   The origin of playing cards is obscure, but it is almost certain that
   they began in China after the invention of paper. 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 in The Chinese origin
   of playing cards that the first cards may have been actual paper
   currency which were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being
   played for. 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 found that dominoes cards were
   printed during the T’ang dynasty, contemporarily 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. 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 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 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 ancestors 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 those 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 ; 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 (International Playing
   Cards Society Journal 30-3 page 139) 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 in Europe.

   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).

   In Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and other ex-Soviet countries, often 36
   card Anglo-American card decks are used, with cards 2 to 5 left out,
   making 6 the lowest value.

Spread across Europe and early design changes

   In the late 1300s, the use of playing cards spread rapidly across
   Europe. The first widely accepted references to cards are in 1371 in
   Spain, in 1377 in Switzerland, and, in 1380, they are referenced in
   many locations including Florence, Paris, and Barcelona . A Paris
   ordinance dated 1369 does not mention cards; its 1377 update includes
   cards. In the account-books of Johanna, duchess of Brabant, and her
   husband, Wenceslaus of Luxemburg, there is an entry dated May 14, 1379
   as follows: "Given to Monsieur and Madame four peters, two forms, value
   eight and a half moutons, wherewith to buy a pack of cards". An early
   mention of a distinct series of playing cards is the entry of Charles
   or Charbot Poupart, treasurer of the household of Charles VI of France,
   in his book of accounts for 1392 or 1393, which records payment for the
   painting of three sets or packs of cards, which were evidently already
   well known.

   It is clear that the earliest cards were executed by hand, like those
   designed for Charles VI. However, this was quite expensive, so other
   means were needed to mass-produce them. It is possible that the use of
   woodcut on paper, which led to the art of printing, developed because
   of the demand for implements of play. The technique of printing
   woodcuts was transferred from use to decorate fabric to use on paper
   around 1400, very shortly after the first recorded manufacture of paper
   in Christian Europe, as opposed to Islamic Spain where it was was much
   older (see Old master print for this]). No examples from before 1423
   survive, but it is clear that most cards of that period were printed as
   woodcuts by the early card makers or cardpainters of Ulm, Nuremberg,
   and Augsburg, from about 1418 to 1450 , and that playing cards 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. No playing cards
   engraved on wood exist whose creation can be confirmed as earlier than
   1423 (the earliest dated woodcut generally accepted). However, in this
   period professional card makers were established in Germany, so it has
   been speculated that woodcut was employed to produce cuts for sacred
   subjects before it was applied to cards, but that hand-painting and
   stencilling were used for cards before images of saints. The German
   Briefmaler or card-painter probably progressed into the woodcut maker.

   The first master of the newly invented printmaking technique of
   engraving is known as the Master of the Playing Cards although he also
   produced religious images. He worked in Germany in the 1430's. Several
   other important engravers also made cards, including Master ES and
   Martin Schongauer , and the unknown masters of two "tarocchi" series
   from Italy. But in general engraving was much more expensive than
   woodcut, and engraved cards must have been relatively unusual.
   Modern French-style 78-card Tarot Enlarge
   Modern French-style 78-card Tarot

   The Europeans experimented with the structure of playing cards,
   particularly in the 1400s. Europeans changed the court cards to
   represent European royalty and attendants, originally "king",
   "chevalier", and "knave" (or "servant"). Queens were introduced in a
   number of different ways. In an early surviving German pack (dated in
   the 1440s), Queens replace Kings in two of the suits as the highest
   card. Throughout the 1400s, 56-card decks containing a King, Queen,
   Knight, and Valet were common. Suits also varied; many makers saw no
   need to have a standard set of names for the suits, so early decks
   often had different suit names (typically 4 suits, although 5 suits
   also had been common and other structures are also known). The cards
   manufactured by German printers used in the later standard the suits of
   hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns still present in Eastern and
   Southeastern German decks today used for Skat and other games, in the
   very early time suits took many variations, however. Later Italian and
   Spanish cards of the 15th century used swords, batons, cups, and coins.
   It is likely that the Tarot deck was invented in Italy at that time,
   though it is often mistakenly believed to have been imported into
   Europe by Gypsies (see detailed studies, also the article Tarot). While
   originally and still today in some places, notably Europe (where French
   suited cards have been substituted in many regions for the older
   Italian suited decks) used for the game of Tarot or Tarock, the Tarot
   deck today is more often used for cartomancy and other occult
   practices. This probably came about in the 1780s, when occult
   philosophers mistakenly associated the symbols on Tarot cards with
   Egyptian hieroglyphs.
   Modern Austrian-style 54-card Tarock
   Enlarge
   Modern Austrian-style 54-card Tarock

   The four suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs) now used in most of
   the world originated in France, approximately in 1480. These suits have
   generally prevailed because decks using them could be made more
   cheaply; the former suits were all drawings which had to be reproduced
   by woodcuts, but the French suits could be made by stencil. The trèfle,
   so named for its resemblance to the trefoil leaf, was probably copied
   from the acorn; the pique similarly from the leaf of the German suits,
   while its name derived from the sword of the Italian suits (alternative
   opinion: derived from the German word "Spaten", which is a tool like
   "Schippe" and in optical sense similar to the Pique-sign; "Schippe" is
   a German slang-name for Pique) . In England the French suits were used,
   and are named hearts, clubs (corresponding to trèfle, the French symbol
   being joined to the Italian name, bastoni), spades (corresponding to
   the French pique, but having the Italian name, spade = sword) and
   diamonds. This confusion of names and symbols is accounted for by
   Chatto thus:

     "If cards were actually known in Italy and Spain in the latter part
     of the 14th century, it is not unlikely that the game was introduced
     into this country by some of the English soldiers who had served
     under Hawkwood and other free captains in the wars of Italy and
     Spain. However this may be, it seems certain that the earliest cards
     commonly used in this country were of the same kind, with respect to
     the marks of the suits, as those used in Italy and Spain."

   Court cards have likewise undergone some changes in design and name.
   Early court cards were elaborate full-length figures; the French in
   particular often gave them the names of particular heroes and heroines
   from history and fable. A prolific manufacturing centre in the 1500s
   was Rouen, which originated many of the basic design elements of court
   cards still present in modern decks. It is likely that the Rouennais
   cards were popular imports in England, establishing their design as
   standard there, though other designs became more popular in Europe
   (particularly in France, where the Parisian design became standard).
   There is some speculation that the common King of Hearts was designed
   as a tribute to Donatello's Judith and Holophernes.

   Rouen courts are traditionally named as follows: the kings of spades,
   hearts, diamonds, and clubs are David, Charles (Charlemagne), Caesar
   and Alexander, respectively. The knaves (or "jacks"; French "valet")
   are Hector (prince of Troy), La Hire (comrade-in-arms to Joan of Arc),
   Ogier (a knight of Charlemagne) and Judas Maccabeus (who led the Jewish
   rebellion against the Syrians). The queens are Pallas (warrior goddess;
   equivalent to the Greek Athena or Roman Minerva), Rachel (biblical
   mother of Joseph), Argine (the origin of which is obscure; it is an
   anagram of regina, which is Latin for queen) and Judith (from Book of
   Judith). Parisian tradition uses the same names, but assigns them to
   different suits: the kings of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs are
   David, Charles, Caesar, and Alexander; the queens are Pallas, Judith,
   Rachel, and Argine; the knaves are Ogier, La Hire, Hector, and Judas
   Maccabee. Oddly, the Parisian names have become more common in modern
   use, even with cards of Rouennais design. (See the Nine Worthies for
   another medieval collection of knightly heroes.)

Later design changes

   In early games the kings were always the highest card in their suit.
   However, as early as the late 1400s 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 1700s by the French
   Revolution, where games began being played "ace high" as a symbol of
   lower classes rising in power above the royalty. 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 cards maker of Agen, main city in
   the Lot-et-Garonne department, that in 1745 had this idea. But the
   French government, that 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 make 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.

   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.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 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.

Alleged 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.
   Enlarge
   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).

Playing cards today

Anglo-American

   The primary deck of fifty-two playing cards in use today, called
   Anglo-American playing cards, 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.

   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. 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,
   leading to the nickname "suicide king". The Jack of Diamonds is
   sometimes known as "laughing boy". The King of Diamonds is armed with
   an ax while the other three kings are armed with swords. The King of
   Diamonds is sometimes referred to as "the man with the ax" because of
   this. 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 the 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.

German

   German suits may have different appearances. Many southern Germans
   prefer decks with hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns (for hearts,
   diamonds, spades, and clubs), as mentioned above. In the game Skat,
   Eastern Germany players used the German deck, while players in western
   Germany mainly used the French deck. After the reunification a
   compromise deck was created, with French symbols, but German colors.
   Therefore, many "French" decks in Germany now have yellow or orange
   diamonds and green spades.

   example Old German playing cards as produced by Altenburger
   Spielkartenfabrik

Central European

   Set of 32 playing cards, the variations have also the numbering VI.
   Enlarge
   Set of 32 playing cards, the variations have also the numbering VI.

   The cards of Hungary, Austria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Croatia,
   Slovakia, and southern Tyrol use the same colors (hearts, bells, leaves
   and acorns) as the cards of Southern Germany. They usually have a deck
   of 32 or 36 cards. The numbering includes VII, VIII, IX, X, Under,
   Over, King and Ace. Some variations with 36 cards have also the number
   VI. The VI in bells also has the function like a joker in some games
   and it's named Welli or Weli.

   These cards are illustrated with a special picture series that was born
   in the times before the 1848-49 Hungarian Freedom Fights, when
   revolutionary movements were awakening all over in Europe. The Aces
   show the four seasons: the ace of hearts is spring, the ace of bells is
   summer, the ace of leaves is autumn and the ace of acorns is winter.
   The characters of the Under and Over cards were taken from the drama,
   William Tell, written by Schiller in 1804, that was shown at Kolozsvár
   (today Cluj-Napoca) in 1827. It was long believed that the card was
   invented in Vienna at the Card Painting Workshop of Ferdinand Piatnik,
   however in 1974 the very first deck was found in an English Private
   Collection, and it has shown the name of the inventor and creator of
   deck as Schneider József, a Master Card Painter at Pest, and the date
   of its creation as 1837. He has chosen the characters of a Swiss drama
   as his characters for his over and under cards; had he chosen Hungarian
   heroes or freedom fighters, his deck of cards would have never made it
   into distribution, due to the heavy censorship of the government at the
   time. Interestingly, although the characters on the cards are Swiss,
   these cards are unknown in Switzerland.

   Games that are played with this deck in Hungary include Ulti, Snapszer
   (or 66), Zsírozás, Preferansz and Lórum. Explanations of these games
   can be found at The Card Games Website.

Switzerland

   In the German speaking part of Switzerland, the prevalent deck consists
   of 36 playing cards with the following suits: roses, bells, acorns and
   shields. The ranks of the alternate deck, from low to high, are: 6, 7,
   8, 9, banner (10), "under", "over", king and ace.

Italian

   Italian playing cards most commonly consist of a deck of 40 cards (4
   suits going 1 to 7 plus 3 face cards), and are used for playing Italian
   regional games such as Scopa or Briscola. 52 (or more rarely 36) card
   sets are also found in the north. Since these cards first appeared in
   the late 14th century when each region in Italy was a separately ruled
   province, there is no official Italian pattern. There are sixteen
   official regional patterns in use in different parts of the country
   (about one per province). These sixteen patterns are split amongst four
   regions:
     * Northern Italian Suits - Triestine, Trevigiane, Trentine, Primiera
       Bolognese, Bergamasche, Bresciane
     * Spanish-like Suits - Napoletane, Sarde, Romagnole, Siciliane,
       Piacentine.
     * French Suits - Genovesi, Lombarde or Milanesi, Toscane, Piemontesi.
     * German Suits - Salisburghesi used in South Tyrol

   The suits are coins (sometimes suns or sunbursts), swords, cups and
   clubs (sometimes batons), and each suit contains an ace (or one),
   numbers two through seven, and three face cards. The face cards are:
     * Re (king), the highest valued - a man standing, wearing a crown
     * Cavallo (lit. horse) [italo-spanish suits] - a man sitting on a
       horse / or Donna (lit. woman from latin domina = mistress) [french
       suits] - a standing woman with a crown
     * Fante (lit. infantry soldier) - a younger figure standing, without
       a crown

   The spanish-like-suit knave (fante - the lowest face card) is depicted
   as a woman, and is sometimes referred to as donna like the next higher
   face card of the french-suit deck; this, when coupled with the french
   usage who puts a queen, also called donna (woman) in italian and not
   regina (queen), as the mid-valued face card, can very occasionally lead
   to a swap of the value of the french-suit donna (or more rarely of the
   international-card Queen) and the knave (or jack).

   Unlike Anglo-American cards, some Italian cards do not have any numbers
   (or letters) identifying their value. The cards' value is determined by
   identifying the face card or counting the number of suit characters.

   Example: "Triestine" playing cards manufactured by Modiano

Spanish

   The four aces present in the baraja, from the deck made by Heraclio
   Fournier. Left to right, top to bottom: oros, copas, espadas and
   bastos.
   Enlarge
   The four aces present in the baraja, from the deck made by Heraclio
   Fournier. Left to right, top to bottom: oros, copas, espadas and
   bastos.

   The traditional Spanish deck (referred to as baraja española in
   Spanish) uses Latin suit symbols, similar to Italian suited Tarots.
   However, the Spanish deck kept only the suit cards (with the exception
   of the 10s and the queens of each suit, which were dropped), while all
   of the trump cards from the Tarot deck were discarded. Being a
   Latin-suited deck (like the Italian deck), it is organized into four
   palos (suits) that closely match those of the Italian suited Tarot
   deck: oros ("golds" or coins), copas (beakers or cups), espadas
   (swords) and bastos (batons or clubs). Certain decks include two
   "comodines" ( jokers) as well.

   The cards (naipes or cartas in Spanish) are all numbered, but unlike in
   the standard Anglo-French deck, the card numbered 10 is the first of
   the court cards (instead of a card depicting ten
   coins/cups/swords/batons); so each suit has only twelve cards. The
   three court or face cards in each suit are as follows: la sota ("the
   knave" or jack, numbered 10 and equivalent to the Anglo-French card J),
   el caballo ("the horse", horseman, knight or cavalier, numbered 11 and
   used instead of the Anglo-French card Q; note the Tarot decks have both
   a queen and a knight of each suit, while the Anglo-French deck uses the
   former, and the Spanish deck uses the latter), and finally el rey ("the
   king", numbered 12 and equivalent to the Anglo-French card K). Many
   Spanish games involve forty-card decks, with the 8s and 9s removed,
   similar to the standard Italian deck.

   The box that goes around the figure has a mark to distinguish the suit
   without showing all of your cards: The cups have an interruption, the
   swords two, the clubs three, and the gold none. This mark is called "la
   pinta" and gave rise to the expression: "le conocí por la pinta" (I
   knew him by his markings).

   The Baraja have been widely considered to be part of the occult in many
   Latin-American countries, yet they continue to be used widely for card
   games and gambling, especially in Spain which does not use the
   Anglo-French deck. Among other places, the Baraja have appeared in One
   Hundred Years of Solitude and other Hispanic and Latin American
   literature.The Spanish deck is used not only in Spain, but also in
   other countries where Spain maintained an influence (e.g., the
   Philippines and Puerto Rico) 1. Among the games played with this deck
   are: el mus (a very popular and highly regarded vying game of Basque
   origin), la brisca, el tute (with many variations), el guiñote, la
   escoba del quince (a trick-taking game), el julepe, el cinquillo, las
   siete y media, la mona, el truc (or truco), el cuajo (a matching game
   from the Philippines), el jamón, el tonto, el hijoputa, and las
   parejas.

Japanese

   The standard 52-card deck is also commonly known as a poker deck or—in
   Japan—a Trump deck, to differentiate it from "dedicated" card games
   such as UNO, or other dynamic card decks like Hanafuda and Kabufuda.

Playing card symbols in Unicode

   The Unicode standard defines 8 characters for card suits in the
   Miscellaneous Symbols block, from U+2660 to U+2667:
   U+2660 dec: 9824 U+2661 dec: 9825 U+2662 dec: 9826   U+2663 dec: 9827
          ♠                ♡                 ♢                 ♣
   BLACK SPADE SUIT WHITE HEART SUIT WHITE DIAMOND SUIT BLACK CLUB SUIT
       &spades;
   &#9824;
   &#x2660;             &#9825;
                    &#x2661;              &#9826;
                                     &#x2662;               &clubs;
                                                        &#9827;
                                                        &#x2663;
   U+2664 dec: 9828 U+2665 dec: 9829 U+2666 dec: 9830   U+2667 dec: 9831
          ♤                ♥                 ♦                 ♧
   WHITE SPADE SUIT BLACK HEART SUIT BLACK DIAMOND SUIT WHITE CLUB SUIT
       &#9828;
   &#x2664;             &hearts;
                    &#9829;
                    &#x2665;              &diams;
                                     &#9830;
                                     &#x2666;               &#9831;
                                                        &#x2667;

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
