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House of Cards
by
Lauren Roberts
I recall a few Friday and Saturday nights when I was growing up when, after we children had been bathed and dressed for bed, my parents would set up the card table, lay out some cheese and crackers and several decks of cards. Another couple would arrive, and soon the four of them would begin an evening of card playing. I don’t know what they played, but I suspect it was poker since I recall seeing those chips on occasion.
I also developed an affection for card games, but that came through my
paternal grandmother who visited regularly and taught us canasta, a
card game I loved and at which I was very good. Solitaire was also
common, though until the computer came along I knew how to play only
one version. Thanks to my computer’s software, I can now play 95
different types.
Playing cards—hand-sized pieces of coated heavy paper or thin
plastic—are sold in sets of 52 cards called packs or decks. Decks are
used for games (some of which are considered gambling), magic tricks,
cartomancy (a form of fortune-telling or divination using a deck of
cards), encryption and board games. But games are not the only thing
you can do with cards. As a child, I loved to build fantastic castles
with them. I was also a bicycling fanatic, and one of my favorite
activities was to attach a playing card to the frame with a clothespin.
When I took off, the spokes would smack that card, making bullet-like
sounds: SNAP-SNAP-SNAP-SNAP-SNAP-SNAP-SNAP-SNAP. Unfortunately, it
didn’t take long for the stiff card to become soft and pliable, thus
losing its sound and appeal. I still wonder if my parents ever
questioned the disappearance of multiple decks of cards.
The forebears of today’s playing cards are believed to have originated
in China after the invention of paper in AD 105. By the tenth century,
the Chinese began using paper dominoes by shuffling and dealing them in
new games. There is a reference to Emperor Mu-Tsung played cards on a
balcony with his wife on New Year’s Eve, 969 A.D.
The date of Europe’s introduction to playing cards is uncertain, but
the current belief is that the cards arrived from the Islamic empire,
specifically from the Mamelukes, a military, landholding aristocracy,
in the late 1300s. The Mameluke deck contained 52 cards comprising four
suits: polo sticks, coins, swords and cups. Each suit contained ten
spots (cards identified by the number of suit symbols) and three court
cards named malik (King), na’ib malik (Viceroy or Deputy King), and thani na’ib
(Second or Under-Deputy). Unlike later European versions, the Mameluke
court cards did not depict specific persons, though they did bear the
names of military officers. Some evidence exists that suggests Persian
decks developed out of earlier Chinese cards brought to Persian through
Europe before reappearing in Europe.
The word “card” is derived from the Latin word, charta,
meaning sheet. It or a similar word is used in all European countries
other than Spain where, interestingly, the first known mention of
playing cards in Europe is found in a Catalan document; there they are
called naip (currently spelled naipes).
Not everyone approved of card playing. A Paris ordinance dated 1369
does not mention card games among its crimes but its 1377 update does
include them. In 1376, a Florentine city ordinance forbid the playing
of a newly introduced card game called naibbe. In 1378, a German ordinance in Regensburg declared various gambling games, including spilen mit der quarten,
punishable by a fine if played for stakes higher than permitted. More
cities followed, enacting bans on card playing—St. Gallen, Switzerland
in 1379; Lille, France and Barcelona, Spain in 1382. In Paris, France,
working people were forbidden to play not only cards, but tennis,
bowls, dice and ninepins on workdays.
Though cards were often condemned, they had their proponents. Saptista Platina, in his treatise, De Honesta Voluptate (1474), recommends cards as a beneficial after-dinner game for gentlemen to divert their minds and thereby improve digestion.
Banned or not cards were not going away. Indeed, the industry of
making cards was growing. By 1423, the city of Nuremberg (Germany) had
a regular card-making industry. In Belgium, in 1427, two master
card-makers, Michael Noel and Philippe du Bos, formed a guild and each
registered his chosen mark: one was a rose, the other a wild boar.
Guild rules defined the colors to be used as well as the duties of the
helpers.
Cards were also a popular trading commodity. Venetian woodcutters
and makers of playing cards, in 1441, applied to their city council for
relief against foreign imports. As a result, regulations were
established that forbade the import of every kind of print including
cards; punishment included the forfeit of the articles and fines. But
trade continued. Cards continued to be imported into Sicily and other
parts of Italy by sea in exchange for spices and other merchandise.
Early cards were hand-painted and so expensive only the wealthy could
afford them, but with the invention of woodcuts in the fourteenth
century, they began to be mass produced. Their structure also changed.
Court cards—those showing a figure—were designed to represent European
royalty and attendants. Queens were introduced at this time. In early
games the kings were always the highest card in their suit. By the late
fourteenth century special significance began to be placed on the
nominally lowest card, now called the ace, so it sometimes became the
highest card.
By the late fifteenth century, standards for the composition of
cards, suit symbols and number of suits had arisen. However,
experimentations with a variety of other suit symbols, including wine
pots, drinking cups, books, printers’ pads, and animal suits, continued
well into the 16th century. The common symbols used today—hearts,
diamonds, spades and clubs—originated in France in approximately 1480,
the result of nothing more than an economy move. (The former suits were
drawings which had to be reproduced by woodcuts, but the new designs
were made more cheaply, by stencil. The decision to use simple shapes
and flat colors (red and black) helped facilitate manufacture, and
French cards soon flooded the market.
Court cards have likewise undergone changes in design and name. Rouen
was the center of card manufacturing in France in the 1500s, and they
originated many of the basic design elements still used today. Early
court cards were elaborate full-length figures; the French in
particular often gave drew from history and fable for them. And at one
time, the king of hearts represented Charlemagne; the king of diamonds
was Julius Caesar; the king of clubs was Alexander the Great and the
king of spades was King David from the Bible.
The fifteenth century was likely the one that saw card playing
introduced to England, though the first English card games date to
around 1520. Then during the early seventeenth century a group of
English manufacturers banded together in London and formed the
intriguingly-named Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards
in 1628. The King was desperate to raise money to continue fighting his
wars, so in exchange for tax revenues, he granted charters of
incorporation to a number of trade guilds including card makers. The
purpose was to prevent foreign imports and control the manufacture
within the London area. The Worshipful Company collected the tax that
was then forwarded onto the King. The revenue lost from the imports was
made up for by the tax, and the cost of the cards remained the same.
Alongside the evolution of the traditional designs, most countries have
also published more fanciful cards, often with a purpose other than
simple card-playing: instruction, propaganda, amusement. Though England
in the late 17th and early 18th century produced a range of very
idiosyncratic packs of cards of this type, other countries, such as
Germany and Austria, became the chief 19th-century producers of packs
of fanciful cards meant for use in card games in “polite society.”
The design of the cards has an interesting history that has included a
number of innovations. The 19th century also saw the development of a
vast industry in cards which were meant to appeal to the public simply
by being attractive-or topical-with courts drawn from literary,
historical or contemporary figures. The chief idea was to take the
numeral cards of an ordinary pack and to make designs in which the
shapes of the pips (the small symbols on the front side of the cards)
were an essential element. Because these cards were unusable for play
their publishers recommended that the blank backs should be used as
visiting cards (a very important item in high society).
One of the most valuable innovations was corner and edge indices, which
enable people to hold their cards close together in a fan with one
hand. The first deck to include this was the Saladee’s Patent (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”), and it became the Jack. Corner indices were
an American invention that first showed up in 1875 when the New York
Consolidated Card Company patented the Squeezers, the first cards with
indices, making the cards easy to hold and fan out in one hand.
This was followed by reversible court cards (the same image on both the
top and bottom). With this, players could no longer get a hint of what
an opponent might have by watching him reverse his cards, though it did
mean abandoning some of the design elements of the earlier full-length
courts. This invention is attributed to a French card maker in Agen in
1745. The French government, which controlled the design of playing
cards, prohibited the printing of reversible court cards. However, the
design was so practical that it was soon seen elsewhere—central Europe,
Italy and Spain adopted the innovation during the second half of
eighteenth century; Great Britain patented it in 1799, and in America,
it was printed around 1802. Other cards that evolved in Europe and are
still in use today include:
German-suited cards have yellow or orange diamonds and
green spades as well as hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns (replacing
the hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs).
Italian-suited cards utilize hundreds of different designs are in use
in different parts of the country. The suits are coins (sometimes suns
or sunbursts), swords, cups and clubs (sometimes batons),
Spanish-suited cards, whose pips consist of clubs, coins, swords and cups.
Though specific design elements of the court cards are rarely used in
game play, a few are notable. The jack of spades and jack of hearts are
drawn in profile, while the rest of the courts are shown in full face
(the exception being the king of diamonds). The king of hearts is shown
with a broadsword behind his head. The king of diamonds is armed with
an ax while the other three kings are armed with swords. And the queen
of hearts is believed to be a representation of Elizabeth of York,
Queen Consort of King Henry VII of England.
Card playing in fact was unceasingly popular through generations. It
became part of stories, music and even art. An Italian bowl of
mid-fifteenth century design shows a party enjoying a card game around
a rough wooden table. And there are paintings (above, beginning at
left) by Rembrandt (or a follower of Rembrandt), Bingham and Cezanne in
which card playing is the dominant theme.
Americans began making their own cards around 1800 and almost
immediately began adding practical refinements: double-headed court
cards (to avoid the nuisance of turning the figure upright, varnishing
for smoothness and durability, indexes (the identifying marks placed in
the cards’ borders or corners) for quick identification, and rounded
corners. The Joker card is also an American invention, first showing up
around 1865-70. Its original name, “Juker,” was derived from the
Alsatian name for the game of Euchre.
Unlike face cards, the design of jokers varies widely. Many
manufacturers use them to carry trademark designs. Jokers are included
in commercial decks but many games require one or both to be removed
before play.
In 1872, Russell & Morgan, the forerunners of the United States Playing Card Company,
was printing theatrical and circus posters, placards and labels. Early
in 1880, Mr. Russell proposed to his partners the manufacture of
playing cards. The partners agreed. Employees were asked for name
suggestions. A printer came up with “Bicycle.” It made sense since
cycling—on unicycles, bicycles, and tricycles—was an increasingly
popular sport at the time. The idea was enthusiastically received, and
the “Rider Back” made its debut in 1887. (The Bicycle line has never
been out of print.)
The first deck of playing cards was completed on June 28, 1881. Shortly
thereafter, the company changed its name to the United States Printing
Company. It was only three years after that, in 1894, that the division
making the cards had grown so large it was spun off with its own name:
the United States Playing Card Company. It also moved to a facility
that would eventually accommodate over 600,000 square feet of
manufacturing operations. That facility included a bell tower that
soared four stories high. The tower contained a set of twelve carillon
bells that ranged in size from one-and-a half feet to more than five
feet, and they acted as a set of chimes for radio station WSAI. The
station was owned by the company from 1922 to 1930, and was used
primarily to promote the game of bridge by broadcasting lessons. Since
there were no limitations on radio ranges then, the strong transmission
could be picked up as far away as New Zealand!
 
Card games have and continue to be a common diversion in wartime. The
pictures above show Civil War officers playing cards during a break in
fighting and Canadian soldiers during World War I in a shell hole also
enjoying a game of cards. But the association between cards and war
was Russell & Morgan’s cooperation with the government in several
wartime operations. During World War II, the company fabricated special
decks that were sent as gifts to POWs in German camps. When moistened,
the cards peeled apart to reveal parts of maps that indicated precise
escape routes. Other decks had cards that illustrated the
characteristic shapes of tanks, ships and various aircraft from enemy
countries. And later, during the Vietnam War, the Ace of Spades served
a famous role. According to the company’s history:
In February, 1966, two lieutenants of Company “C,” Second
Battalion, 35th Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, wrote The United
States Playing Card Company and requested decks containing nothing but
the “Bicycle” Ace of Spades. The cards were useful in psychological
warfare. The Viet Cong were very superstitious and highly frightened by
this Ace. The French previously had occupied Indo-China, and in French
fortunetelling with cards, the Spades predicted death and suffering.
The Viet Cong even regarded lady liberty as a goddess of death. USPC
shipped thousands of the requested decks gratis to our troops in
Vietnam. These decks were housed in plain white tuckcases, inscribed
“Bicycle Secret Weapon.” The cards were deliberately scattered in the
jungle and in hostile villages during raids.
On the home front, card playing was a popular family pastime up until
perhaps the mid-twentieth century even with competition from radio and
to a degree from television. And unlike those products, which were
costly, cards were inexpensive; a1949 Sears catalog lists the price of
decks from $0.85 - $1.98.
In late 1940 the first nationwide study of card playing in the United
States was conducted by the Association of American Card Manufacturers.
It surveyed large and small communities and families at various income
levels. The results were interesting in that more American families
played cards than had electricity:
87% of the American families owned cards.
83% of American families owned a radio.
36% of American families had a telephone.
73% of American families had electricity.
Though cards today are not as popular as they once were, software
sales of card games (Hoyle being particularly noteworthy) are robust,
and online gambling sites that include card games have also grown
enormously.
Of course not everyone likes cards. Religious organizations even today
oppose card playing, and gambling is a recognized and terrible
addiction. Nevertheless, I find myself amused by the tirade on card playing offered by Reverend W.A. Alexander, D.D. of Canton, MA, in 1892, a part of which is reproduced below:
Cards are hopelessly linked with evil associations. Its
very terminology is so trailed in the mire, that no man or woman who
pretends to culture will venture to use the phrases of the game in
polite society, such gambling phrases being more appropriate to some Buck Fanshaw
in some Western mining town than to gentlemen and ladies in our
parlors. To use card language in social conversation is regarded as
boorish and unrefined. Addison, speaking in the Spectator on methods of
spending time, said one hundred and eighty years ago: “I must confess I
think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in
such diversions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to
recommend them but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of
gaming has even this much to say for itself, I shall not determine. But
I think it very wonderful to see persons of the best sense passing away
a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with
no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no
other ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in
different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this
species (that is, one who resorts to this expedient to kill time)
complaining that life is short?” . . .
A lady once asked me: “It is not possible that you object
to a little innocent, social game of cards?” She hampered me in her
question, by assuming the two very things I was disposed to allege
against the usage: 1. That, in view of all the associations of the
game, and the gateway that it opens to gambling, the exciting appeal it
makes to chance, and the possible consequences that may ensue from its
practice, it cannot be accounted prudent or safe, nor in view of our
responsibility, innocent. 2. It is anything but a social game. You sit
and play by the hour, and only hear the slamming of cards on the table,
now and then a laugh, and the repetition of card names and gaming
phrases. There is no interchange of ideas, no room for improving
conversation. It is a substitute for these. It is intended to remove
the necessity for such a tax on the intellect, and too often it but
hides the vacuity of mind which their absence creates. Young men in
whom love for the card-table has become fixed acquire but little or no
love for reading, for cards has relieved them of the necessity of
intelligence as a means of diversion. They play only in “select”
circles, they tell you. But the membership of the circles are selected
for their card-loving qualities and not for their nobler endowments of
mind and heart. This game therefore operates as the dance often does,
as a social leveler, and is too often an apology for a vacant mind.
Fondness for cards and fondness for good reading are seldom found in
the same person. Card playing operates as a barrier to the growth of
intelligence.
One game I do love is called Spider. It takes a combination of skill
and luck to win it, and the ending is often very close since players
inevitably have the cards other players need to win. Whoever can work
around their missing card with complicated moves is the winner. The
rules:
For 2-4 people use two decks; for 5-8 people, use three. Do not use the
jokers. Shuffle the cards well. Deal each person eleven cards. Place
the balance of the cards in a single pile, face down, in the center of
the table.
The object is to be the first one to get rid of your cards. Cards are
laid down in columns around the center pile (thus the “spider” in the
game). They must always be a minimum of three, but there is no maximum.
Long columns can be broken up to retrieve a card, but at no time can
there be less than three cards in any column. The columns can be
ordered in one of two ways: (1) same number, different suit (meaning a
maximum of four cards since no suit has more than four symbols), or (2)
same suit and different sequential numbers (e.g., king, queen, jack,
10, 9, 8, 7, etc.) Aces can be high or low so you can have ace, 2 and 3
or ace, king and queen.
Because multiple decks are used, it is inevitable that players will
have doubles or triples of the same card. These can be tricky. As the
game continues, players will find it increasingly difficult to get rid
of cards, and columns will be broken up and cards moved around. The
most experienced players can often work out how to move nearly all the
columns around to get the one card needed. Familiarity is a must as any
moves that do not work mean the player must return all cards to their
original location. A good memory is essential because you will find
you want to work out all the moves in your head while your competition
is playing—and sometimes someone will make a move that completely
destroys your plans. It’s almost as much fun as building a castle of
cards and then blowing them down!
For those interested in learning more about the history of playing
cards, these sites are excellent and filled with images of early cards: Court Cards, Dal Negro (a company that has a good page on the production process), The House of Cards, The United States Playing Card Company, and The World of Playing Cards (which has pages on early European cards, making your own playing cards, cards for sale, and the origins of playing cards).
Bookmark specifications: Read for Knowledge and Pleasure; Play Cards for Relaxation
Dimensions: 3 1/2” x 2 1/2”
Material: Varnished paper
Manufacturer: Unknown
Date: 1940s-50s
Acquired: eBay
Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has
been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That
“talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book
reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as
well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper
and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines
has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about
books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including
three cats, 800 bookmarks and approximately 1,000 books that, whether
previously read or not, constitutes her to-be-read stack. She is a
member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) and Book Publicists
of Southern California as well as a longtime book design judge for
Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. You can
reach her at
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