These models were copied time after time, so that images spread between workshops and from master to pupil. Images acquired during journeys abroad often contained errors of observation and proportion which were compounded by subsequent copying. The idea of suit symbols may have originated with Chinese ‘Money’ cards. However, the suits that made their way into Europe were probably an adaptation of the Islamic cups, swords, coins, and polo sticks.
It is very distinct from magic, but there is some overlap in the practitioners of the two crafts. It is a rapidly expanding movement, largely driven by incredibly talented teenagers and young adults. Mah-jongg, for example, uses suits and numbers and symbols on individual game pieces, but these are, traditionally, tiles rather than cards. The line can get a little blurry, since you can play mah-jongg with cards and, I suppose, you could create a solid, un-shuffle-able set of poker cards out of wood, but scholars view them differently. Tile games are probably older than card games, with dice games and board games so ancient they date as far back as recorded history goes.
As well as these 52 cards, commercial packs often include between one and six jokers, most often two. Although the Germans abandoned the queen before the 1500s, the French permanently picked it up and placed it under 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 the late 14th century, Europeans changed the Mamluk court cards to represent European royalty and attendants. 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. Modern playing cards carry index labels on opposite corners or in all four corners to facilitate identifying the cards when they overlap and so that they appear identical for players on opposite sides.
Analyses of physical playing cards can also give rise to different interpretations, so for many of these we do not know with certainty what a full deck looked like or the circumstances of their use. Today, the popularity of the French deck and games that use it are having a strangling effect on most of the other decks out there. “In the beginning of the last century, there was a clear division where people used French and where they used German,” says Endebrock, who is German. “But nowadays they use French-suited cards everywhere in Germany.” That’s the story worldwide. One of my favorites is the deck of the Galician Jews, who made their own cards to avoid using the European ones, laden with Christian imagery.
Methods of Production
From the manuscript outdated 1377, our German monk buddy Johannes from Switzerland cites the look of playing cards and many different card games which could be played together. From the 1400s playing cards frequently appear together with gaming games in spiritual sermons as illustrations of gaming activities which are denounced, and there’s clear proof that a 52-card deck originated and has been utilized within this moment. At any rate these are still the four matches still located in Spanish and Italian playing cards now and are occasionally known as the Latin suits. The artwork on English court cards appears to have been largely influenced by designs produced in Rouen, Belgium, which produced large amounts of playing cards for export.
Transformation decks
Such packs were given as wedding gifts, bequeathed as heirlooms, and regarded as valuable commodities. A standard deck of Bicycle, Bee, or whatever cards you can grab from the store, will usually have a few advertisement cards inside every fresh pack. There are three face cards of each suit in a deck, for a total of 12 court or face cards per deck. But in your standard deck of Bicycle Cards, red and black is what you’ll see. There are 26 red cards and 26 black cards in a deck — Hearts and Diamonds are red, Clubs and Spades are black.
Mathematical Magic
Some early packs were hand painted works of art which were expensive and affordable only by the wealthy. But as demand increased cheaper methods of production were discovered so that playing cards became available for everyone… It is also to the English that we owe the place of honour given to the Ace of Spades, which has its roots in taxation laws. The English government passed an Act that cards could not leave the factory until they had proof that the required tax on playing cards had been paid. This initially involved hand stamping the Ace of Spades – probably because it was the top card. But to prevent tax evasion, in 1828 it was decided that from now on the Ace of Spades had to be purchased from the Commissioners for Stamp Duties, and that it had to be specially printed along with the manufacturer’s name and the amount of duty paid.
The corners of the cards are slightly rounded, with an index showing a suit symbol and the number of pips (2–10), or an initial letter for face cards (K, Q, and J) and the Ace (A). All the cards are reversible (i.e., double-headed), and the face cards show only the upper torsos and heads of the court members. The pip cards indicate their numerical values by displaying the corresponding number of the suit symbols (Figure 1). This article answers these questions and more by exploring the history of the Anglo-American 52-card deck. But the real stroke of genius that the meta mtg French came up with was to divide the four suits into two red and two black, with simplified and clearer symbols. This meant that playing cards could be produced with stencils, a hundred times more quickly than using the traditional techniques of wood-cutting and engraving.
A card stack is a really genius concept in magic and it’s formidable when performed with skill. A stacked deck in magic is simply a deck of cards that appears to be random and shuffled to the… If you play certain variations of Poker, Euchre, Go Fish, Crazy Eights, and other games, you might end up using your Jokers during these card games.
Jokers were later introduced in American decks in the 1860s to play the game Euchre. Increasing awareness and appreciation of the cultural and historical significance of playing cards. The classification of numeral cards in French-suited packs, covering various pip designs in over 400… Many early examples of playing cards were preserved inside the covers of old books, where they were used as stiffener. Imagery on many early playing cards resembles the stock repertory of animals, plants, birds and flowers which recurs almost identically in the marginal drollery, miniature illustrations and trompe l’oeil of widely divergent manuscripts, and in sculpture.” Luxury hand-painted packs were only available to a few, who enjoyed them privately or with select company.
The subject can be anything from botany to heraldry, from cosmology to geography. While new suits, expanded decks, or electronic cards may emerge, I believe the 52-card deck has the winning hand. 52 cards offer infinite magic, nostalgia, and creativity passed lovingly across generations. As a gaming and statistics enthusiast, I‘ve always been fascinated by the ubiquitous 52-card deck and why this particular format has endured across countless games and cultures worldwide.
Later versions of Japanese playing cards include hanafuda, or flower cards, which have 12 flower-themed suits, one for each month, and 48 cards in a deck. Nintendo was originally founded to sell hanafuda cards and, in fact, still does. Some sources cite a Chinese game called yezi ge, which translates to “game of leaves,” as the first game to use playing cards. But a 2009 study found that there is no indication that the “leaves” actually referred to playing cards, and supposes that the “leaves” may have actually been the pages of the game’s instruction book—and that the game used dice, as other Chinese games of the time did.
In addition, tarot cards are required for games such as French Tarot (78 cards), which is widely played in France, and the Tarock family of games (42 or 54 cards) played in countries like Austria and Hungary. With the onset of the Renaissance in Italy, the new spirit of Humanism was spreading through Europe bringing a change of form and direction. The style and thematic content of playing cards reflected the new world view. This new influence did not reach certain parts of Europe until the high and late Renaissance in the 16th century. Following in the wake of Italian art, the German Renaissance developed a new form of medieval knightly culture.