A playing card is a typically hand-sized piece of heavy paper or thin plastic used for playing card games. A complete set of cards is a pack or deck. Playing cards are often used as props in magic tricks, as well as occult practices such as cartomancy, and a number of card games involve (or can be used to support) gambling. As a result, their use sometimes meets with disapproval from some religious groups (such as a minority of conservative Christians). They are also a popular collectible (as distinct from the cards made specifically for collectible trading card games). Specialty and novelty decks are commonly produced for collectors, often with political, cultural, or educational themes. One side of each card (the front or face) carries markings that distinguish it from the others and determine its use under the rules of the particular game being played, while the other side (the back) is identical for all cards, usually a plain color or abstract design. In most games, the cards are assembled into a deck (or pack), and their order is randomized by a procedure called shuffling to provide an element of chance in the game.

History

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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 and dominoes likely evolved from those earliest playing cards. 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. 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.

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Hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day. We had a lovely day, now sitting on the deck now sipping sticky wines and playing cards. hugs
Pattycam (Pattycam) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:02:56 -0000
Hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day. We had a lovely day, now sitting on the deck now sipping sticky wines and playing cards. hugs
Stocking unwrapped! My face are the playing cards.. Meant to be sold on the MJ tour as merch. SICK! http://twitpic.com/v4tub
Faylo (Lothian T) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:00:22 -0000
Stocking unwrapped! My face are the playing cards.. Meant to be sold on the MJ tour as merch. SICK! http://twitpic.com/v4tub
#blokus http://bit.ly/8YLVXs Copag Poker Size Regular Index 1546 Playing Cards #games
gamefoolery (Amber Bissinger) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:52:51 -0000
#blokus http://bit.ly/8YLVXs Copag Poker Size Regular Index 1546 Playing Cards #games
@heather_retro I got Hello Kitty playing cards! We are going to play go fish with John. :)
meaganxstanford (meagan stanford) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:48:05 -0000
@heather_retro I got Hello Kitty playing cards! We are going to play go fish with John. :)
Playing cards with bex and my grandparents. Im in debt by 19p, not good
daisybruce (Daisy Bruce) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:46:15 -0000
Playing cards with bex and my grandparents. Im in debt by 19p, not good
On the 12th day of Tech-mas my true love gave to me ... Something to do inside -- make a globe of playing cards. http://bit.ly/6RPZP6
kuengineering (KU Engineering) Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:42:42 -0000
On the 12th day of Tech-mas my true love gave to me ... Something to do inside -- make a globe of playing cards. http://bit.ly/6RPZP6

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