Cartamundi - Traditional

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Traditional card games

Playing cards...
Usually rectangular, sometimes also round or oval sheets of paper board, in exceptional cases of metal, ivory, wood, leather and the like. The playing cards are mainly used for card playing but also for fortune telling or magic tricks.

A pack of cards consists, depending on the game, of 24, 32 to 52, two sets of 52 cards and 2 or 3 wildcards. The European playing cards have four suits which are marked by different symbols and margins. The French suits are made up of clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds; the German/Swiss suits consist of acorns, leaves, hearts and bells; the pictures on the Italian or Spanish suits are clubs, swords, cups and coins.

Up to now, there is no clear evidence for the origin and the meaning of the different playing card suits. The ranking and value of the colours and figures depend on the applied rules. In addition to the value of the numbers there are, in general, three figures which originate from the mediaeval hierarchy. These are, in the French suits, King, Queen and Jack, in the German suits King, Over and Under and in the Italian or Spanish suits King, Knight and Jack. Concerning the Tarock, there is an own sequence of trumps with 22 cards apart from the four suits.

In 1377, playing cards were first mentioned in Europe. In China, playing cards have been known since the 7^th or 8^th century, in India since the beginning of the 16^th century. Supposedly, they were brought to Europe by the Saracens.
Source: www.wissen.de