The History of Playing Cards: The Evolution of the Modern Deck

December 2, 2024 8:26 PM

Because we are all familiar with the modern deck of playing cards, a standard deck of Bicycle rider back playing cards seems very "normal" and "traditional" to most of us. But to people of the past, a deck like this is anything but normal! The reality is that playing cards have undergone a radical transformation since their first beginnings several centuries ago.
posted by ShooBoo (18 comments total)

This article uses a racial slur against Roma people in the 3rd paragraph.
posted by agentofselection at 8:56 PM on December 2, 2024 [4 favorites]

Hold your breath past sentence#3 para#3, there's plenty of interest in this essay. In England: "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.".

In my days touring Europe for an EU-quango in the 90s, I tried to pick up a) weird stuff from a local supermarket [hagel from NL, pasta from IT] and b) a deck of cards, for my tots at home. I should be ashamed that I also stole a dinky set of micro flatware from FinnAir and another from SAS to make it easier for the girls to eat the exotic food.

If you're going to play piquet it seems more courtly-polite to play with a French deck.
posted by BobTheScientist at 1:16 AM on December 3, 2024 [2 favorites]

I'm very pleased to see that the author takes some care to distinguish "what might be true" from "what we can verify," as opposed to making assertions that they can't support. (That being said, linked references to authoritative scholarly texts or, even better, primary sources would be very helpful.)

And there's so much that's delightful and surprising:

"The suit signs in the first European decks of the 14th century were swords, clubs, cups, and coins, and very likely had their origin in Italy, although some connect these with the cups, coins, swords, and polo-sticks found on Egyptian playing cards from the Mamluk period. At any rate these are still the four suits still found in Italian and Spanish playing cards today, and are sometimes referred to as the Latin suits."

"The Germans introduced their own suits to replace the Italian ones, and these new suits reflected their interest in rural life: acorns, leaves, hearts, and bells; the latter being hawk-bells and a reference to the popular rural pursuit of falconry."
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 1:24 AM on December 3, 2024 [7 favorites]

Thank you! I came back to this article this evening and found it much easier to dive into.

Our weekly games night usually involves a Uno deck, though we don't play the usual rules at all.
posted by freethefeet at 2:21 AM on December 3, 2024

One interesting feature of the French dominance of playing cards in this time is the attention given to court cards. In the late 1500s French manufacturers began giving the court cards names from famous literary epics such as the Bible and other classics. It is from this era that the custom developed of associating specific court cards with famous names, the more well-known and commonly accepted ones for the Kings being King David (Spades), Alexander the Great (Clubs), Charlemagne (Hearts), and Julius Caesar (Diamonds), representing the four empires of Jews, Greeks, Franks, and Romans.

I've never heard of this. Does anyone know if it is still the custom in le France ?
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:21 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

This article uses a racial slur against Roma people in the 3rd paragraph.

It is considered a slur in the US, but in Europe there are Romani groups who self-describe using the term, so it's less cut and dried, especially in a European/historical context.
posted by pipeski at 5:47 AM on December 3, 2024 [17 favorites]

I can’t imagine playing euchre with a joker thrown in. Well, I guess I can, but it would vastly change the nature of the game. Kinda want to try it, but I’m deep in cribbage country, all my euchre-playing friends are several states east of me…

In high school Spanish class my friend and I figured out how to use the Spanish decks to play euchre. We had a lot of fun but I suspect my language skills could have improved more if we spent less time playing cards.
posted by caution live frogs at 6:06 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

I can’t imagine playing euchre with a joker thrown in.

My favourite odd deck card game is Six-handed 500, a Euchre adjacent game which not only has a joker, but the number cards go up to 13.
posted by zamboni at 6:49 AM on December 3, 2024 [3 favorites]

While the earliest cards are unknown and may have been invented in China, the route into Europe can be traced with both relics and etymological clues. They appear to have come to Europe from Arabic countries via Moorish Spain.

In 1379 the Chronicles of Viterbo record that a new game called 'nayb' was introduced by a 'Saracen' (= Oriental, Arab or Muslim). The word for playing cards used in the Italian Renaissanc (naibi) and in Spain even today (naipes) is of Arabic origin and obviously derived from nā'ib.

posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:54 AM on December 3, 2024 [3 favorites]

I love that with playing cards, you can use those for cartomancy if you are not a Tarot person!
posted by Kitteh at 6:55 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

I strongly suspect this was put together from available tertiary sources rather than scholarly and/or primary (likely non-English language) materials. Which is perfectly fine; a breezy popular overview is often the best source for broad information. I will not that he puts Rouen in Belgium, which would surprise the French quite badly. I think it was an editing mistake, and that sentence belongs in the pevious paragraph….
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:37 AM on December 3, 2024 [2 favorites]

The library of congress has some neat playing cards in their digital collection like these playing cards of Imperial Russia. You'll have to click into each link on that page since the first image is the back of the card.

The LOC also has high res scans of trademark registration docs for playing cards in case you want some high quality card images for your poker room
posted by vespabelle at 8:19 AM on December 3, 2024 [5 favorites]

The Fournier Museum in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, is a surprisingly fascinating (to me) collection of historical playing cards from the middle ages through the present, including examples from China and Persia.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 8:34 AM on December 3, 2024 [1 favorite]

When I was in South America, I liked the cards I saw there, where the Clubs (bastos) were real clubs, not [black??] clover. Also, espadas (swords) are more fun than gardening implements.
posted by MtDewd at 11:54 AM on December 3, 2024

In French, the names are trèfle (clover) for ♣, pique (pike) for ♠, carreau (square) for ♢ and coeur (heart) for ♡.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 2:24 PM on December 3, 2024

I can’t imagine playing euchre with a joker thrown in.

Like zamboni, my first thought was 500. Very euchre-like but with more cards, so it isn’t as easy to count. In my family, we always played four hand 500 because you use a regular poker deck and with only four players, there is always someone to sit in for a hand or two when nature calls.

My family also plays Tarock (we were ethnic Germans from Moravia nee Czechia, thus we don’t call it Tarocky like the Czechs), which requires an Industrie & Gluck deck.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:04 PM on December 3, 2024 [2 favorites]

In Central European tarock games, the order of the black suits from highest to lowest goes from K, Q, C, J, 10, 9, 8, 7 but the red suits goes from K, Q, C, J, 1, 2, 3, 4.

Huh!
—

The backs of those oldest surviving Mameluke cards - so gorgeous. But presumably painted and full of little inconsistencies? What’s the oldest known case of marking the cards?
posted by clew at 8:48 PM on December 3, 2024

Mod note: [Love this history and the added comment links! We've added it to the sidebar and Best Of blog roundup of recent great posts!]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:51 AM on December 8, 2024