The History of Playing Cards

PATREON: / generalistpapers
THANK YOU to Mr. Beat for lending his voice to this video! / iammrbeat
The 52-card deck is a pretty universally known object. Every household in America (and I would presume most countries in the world) has one or two decks lying around their house. They’re used for magic, fortune telling, and most commonly for playing games. But this deck, with four suits of two colors, numbers one through ten, and three face cards per suit, seems normal to us. But where did it all come from? Let’s find out.
Sources:
A History of Playing Cards And a Bibliography of Cards And Gaming by Catherine Perry Hargrave and U.S. Playing Card Co.
A Concise History of Playing-cards by Simon Wintle www.wopc.co.uk/the-history-of...
The History of Playing Cards: The Evolution of the Modern Deck by Will Roya
playingcarddecks.com/blogs/al...
Music:
Nomadic Sunset by Alexander Nakarada | www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Achaidh Cheide by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
creativecommons.org/licenses/b...
Minstrel Dance by Random Mind, www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

[@darreljones8645]

For those of you who don't recognize the book of Judith, it's only considered part of the Bible if you're Catholic or Orthodox. Protestants usually don't include it in their Bible, or only do so as part of the Apocrypha.

[@AnaIvanovic4ever]

Or the Ethiopian Church! All books are part of the Canon there

[@teogonzalez7957]

@@AnaIvanovic4evereven the childhood gospels?

[@AnaIvanovic4ever]

@@teogonzalez7957 I'm not sure but I think not. They were written pretty late in Europe right? But all late Jewish books written during Persian and Selucid times like Enoch, Maccabies etc are canonical.

[@brutusthebear9050]

​@AnaIvanovic4ever Technically the Coptic Church is Oriental Orthodox

[@IONATVS]

⁠@@AnaIvanovic4everMy Understanding is the Ethiopian Canon doesn’t include the Catholic/Orthodox books of Maccabees, preferring their own, completely different accounts of the same events, recorded originally in Ge’ez. But otherwise they include all the books from the Greek Septuagint/Latin Vulgate, including the ones the Orthodox and Catholics no longer consider canon and a bunch of other minor books. But yeah, there’s SO many other ancient books that didn’t make it into ANY canon, even the Ethiopian…usually for good reason.

[@olleani]

The three suits of the Chinese money cards makes me think they're the inspiration to the Mahjong suits. Which also said to represent coins, string of coins and myriad of coins equating to circles, bamboo and character suits respectively.

[@IONATVS]

They are indeed. Mahjong is the direct local descendant of the money cards, and their evolution is why we know so much about the money cards despite paper playing cards of that original style not surviving to the modern day

[@tonimuellerDD]

German 52 card decks actually have 3 jokers, and most German games also use them. So, no throwing away here 😊 The old German suits (acorn etc.) are also still very common esp. in the south and the east. They are typically used for a 32 cards deck starting at 7 to play THE German pub card game called Skat (a bit like bridge, but for 3 players).

[@littlehorn0063]

I wouldn't say that Skat is at least somewhat similar to Bridge. The only things similar is the team aspect (even though it's temporary truces) and "trading" at the start. It's closer to Preferance than anything, and even then it's loosely similar. Skat is very unique!

[@frederikspudnik1792]

It's also quits possible that "spades" came from "spade" (spah-deh) in italian, which means "sword" And spades does correspond to the suit of swords

[@IONATVS]

Japanese Hanafuda cards actually don’t descend directly from Chinese money cards-though their local versions of Mahjong do-They descend from komatsufuda, local copies of Portuguese playing cards imported at the end of the Sengoku Jidai. They were banned under the Tokugawa shogunate, hence their radical redesign from 4 suits of 12 cards (1 thru 9, Female Knave, Knight, King) each to 12 suits of 4 cards each, with no foreign or gambling-related symbolism to avoid the ban.

[@nullifye7816]

There's also a related development of the Portuguese cards called I think "Unsun Karuta" or similar (Karuta=card). They survived the Tokugawa ban in some remote village, having 5 suits of 15 cards each, and they look badass as fuck. Looking at the five face cards, they seem to be Ashigaru, Bushi, Lady, Daimyo, Sage, Dragon. Imagine winning poker with a hand of five-of-a-kind Dragons...

[@user-lb3ji6su7u]

Really interesting video! We in Greece call those symbols with some inspiration from the past. We have swords for clubs, goblets or cups for hearts, we use spade and for the diamonds we use the french carreau refering to its diamond shape.

[@andychap6283]

Always a highlight in my feed to see an upload from this channel. Love these interesting obscure topics

[@legithopecrew]

Love your vids, always happy to see another one pop up, thanks!

[@TheMrMe1]

A lot of history missing - no mention of the trumps (tarots) of tarot deck (which probably inspired the jokers), no mention of how jacks and knights used to be used simultaneously.... All in all, a pretty good video though

[@littlehorn0063]

Doubt that the major arcana actually inspired jokers. Sure, maybe the design, but for a very long time there was no jokers in most card games. There's a family of card games using the tarot cards, the tarok games. They are very old games of european origin. They have special rules for The Fool card, so you could say that it was the first joker. But for the rest of the games? Karnoffel didn't use them, Piquet doesn't, Skat doesn't, Whist doesn't. Euchre was one of the first modern games to use them, being designated as the second-highest and highest cards of the trump suit. If anything, the major arcana inspired the trump suits in modern games! Before Whist (that's around 17th century I believe?), there was no trumps in most card games. Again, only Tarok had it. And it was the major arcana that was trump! One evidence of that being the case is the card game Piquet, created during the lifetime (maybe a little more) of Jeanne d'Arc, 15th century. No trumps there, all suits equal. And a bit of personal opinion: Piquet is a difficult game, hard to do the hand estimations there. Spades, Bezique or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are better suited for 2 player experience.

[@patrickdaniel4953]

I love your channel !! great documentary on the playing cards !!

[@MemphiStig]

6:35 diomands? is that a typo or ye olde spelling? However, Charlemagne is definitely misspelled "Charlamange." Good video. I didn't know about the face card names. I wonder if the Chinese myriads represented or were named after specific people too.

[@metallsnubben]

Charlemange is when he was having dinner

[@MemphiStig]

@@metallsnubben lmao I was afraid he might have a skin condition

[@TheGeneralistPapers]

No ye olde spellings here. Just misspellings. I swear there are always misspellings in my videos, no matter how many times I check haha

[@EdricHsu]

I wonder if the Joker cards were inspired or derived from the Fool card from Tarot decks? Also if they were meant to add on to the other card designs to fill up a whole sheet of card stock for economy of printing and trimming purposes?

[@moumantai6337]

At some point back then, I remember jokers come in four in a deck, now 2 is the standard

[@ThePhiloctopus]

My Piatnik Star Club decks come with 3 jokers. I wish 4 was standard, they are useful it heaps of games

[@MonsieurLeCoq]

Discovered your channel back when you released your coat of arms video. Wanted to see what happened in the meantime and must say I love what you do :)

[@chandupadissanayaka9964]

This channel is Generally underrated. Great video though.

[@KristoffDiscover]

Great video. Thanks!

[@hansolowe19]

I like this channel. Keep it up. 👍

[@Bico-420]

interesting! Knave reminds me of the old German word for boy: Knabe

[@fintan3563]

Ha! Since childhood I have called the suits: hearts, clovers, shovels & diamonds!

[@kujmagic]

Interesting and informative

[@alpacamale2909]

very compact video

[@jam777]

Very good video. Where I can download or buy these beautiful siits of different playing cards of world. Give the link in the comments, if you don't mind

[@urielsoto247]

It's so amazing!

[@1337w0n]

Chalices, Scimitars, Coins, Polo sticks Me, who's familiar with Tarrot: _Oh._

[@jacktribble5253]

I collect rare decks as a compulsive shopping outlet. I have a deck in the house.

[@Faustobellissimo]

Halk-bell??? It's hawk-bell...

[@King_of_SpadesThe1st]

Very interesting

[@robertholt6444]

I always throw the Joker cards away. The next deck I get I'll keep them and learn to play old maid. I think Jokers are in that game too.

[@litigioussociety4249]

Most people use them for two things: wild cards in poker and similar games, and replacement cards by writing the missing or damaged card on it.

[@metallsnubben]

@@litigioussociety4249 In Swedish it's pretty common to use the word joker for anything that would be called a "wild card" in English actually, including both literal cards in games (whether or not it's a classic card deck) and wild cards in sports (like a team that qualifies in a "lucky loser" way or getting a perfect score or whatever could be called a "jokerlag")

[@Noah-ry5qj]

The way we play old maid is simply taking 3 queens out, the remaining being the "old maid". Much more flavorful that way 😁

[@rogersnick17]

Same

[@eduardmorell5935]

Thats awesome

[@josepha.michael2859]

Where do you have more information about sponsoring videos?

[@scottpelak1856]

Modern euchre doesn't use the Jokers 😂

[@kirandeepchakraborty7921]

Nice 👍🏻

[@elianenetto634]

Hi this is a very educational video and lika i said *very educational*

[@kirilvelinov7774]

Evolution of card suits Three suits(China) Coins,Wands,Myriads The Myriads suit was abandoned Four suits(Italy) Coins split with Cups Wands split with Swords Updated(Germany) Coins turned into Bells Wands turned into Acorns Swords turned into Shields Cups turned into Roses Later Roses became Hearts and Shields became Leaves Current suits(UK) Spades,Hearts,Clovers and Diams Four color variation Black,Red,Aqua blue,Yellow Extra suit(2020s):Gold stars(green in four color deck)

[@kirilvelinov7774]

2024:fuchsia hearts,yellow diamonds,black spades and turquoise four leaf clovers

[@kirilvelinov7774]

The diamond has thin black border

[@user-qx5cn1si1q]

What are batons exactly and what are they used fo? Couldn't find

[@user-qx5cn1si1q]

Mad fascinsting!

[@niklasbrandt7415]

Where did you find the information on the specific Kings and Queens? I had heard about this before, but have not been able to verify it. I'd be very curious to see a reputable source for that.

[@JosephOfLosAngeles23]

I found the info on the Wikipedia page for those playing cards, but I don’t think it’s very reliable

[@Turo185]

It does not sound reliable to me, at all. No info given about who decided on the figures of history or why.

[@Pio2001]

These names are written on all french decks. Looking in the online archives on the french national library, I can see a deck from 1740 with these names already on the cards, but another deck from 1664 has different names on it (Helene as queen of diamonds, Cyrus as king of diamonds...)

[@niklasbrandt7415]

@@Pio2001 Thank you so much! Out of curiosity, is that on modern cards as well? Whilst Germany generally uses french style decks, I have never seen that here.

[@Pio2001]

@@niklasbrandt7415 Yes, they are written in small characters. You can see a standard french deck in the french wikipedia, article "Jeu de cartes français" : fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeu_de_cartes_fran%C3%A7ais All decks look like this. We had a dozen of them in my grandparents house, used to play various games. The first time I saw an english deck I was like "what the heck are these ?... and why is it J, Q and K instead of V, D and R ???"

[@Origen17]

6:37... Diamonds misspelled

[@TuttleScott]

we always used joker cards to replace missing or damaged cards.

[@meda_mo]

i feel like if they pit athena, godess of war, and a knight who fought alongside joan of arc, they could've joan of arc as one of the queens. i know theres not realky anything i can do about it but i feel like its a but of a missed opportunity😭😭

[@sarabrockett6202]

There is a mystery map of the cards it gives every birthday a. Card and tells your personality and tells the future its Accurate

[@Gregor147]

Is there any significance to the face cards looking left/right?

[@ANNAKKi]

And the Ace?

[@iamtheprogression]

Cool toe workout, havent seen that anywhere

[@calebtuckrt4619]

You forgot about the ace

[@Sardor_Hatamiy]

Good

[@Sk8Bettty]

I collect jokers.

[@jedimasterhighground334]

The USA collects them as well, they are stored on capital hill.

[@Shaz416]

Unfortunately, as incorrectly described in the video, tarot is stigmatized as occultist due to recent historical changes (after they left Italy in the late 15th century to the early 20th century). Despite this connection to the occult, it does not mean people who practice tarot use it for that purpose. In recent decades especially, tarot has become a form of self-care for many - dare I say most - practioners. 😊

[@thogarrathikarthik2006]

First comment: This is a great explanation

[@Tankhorse02]

I love playing euka for money 🤗

[@imagographics5096]

Diomand? Charlamange? 🤣

[@akashpanda1729]

Why is the Ace of Spades printed differently from other Aces?

[@littlehorn0063]

So that the printing house, those who made the cards, could be identified without the deck of cards. Tradition stems back to 18th century England. It's mostly a western thing, it seems, as most european card packs have Ace of Spades same as all other aces

[@Mitjitsu]

No idea the jokers originated from America.

[@valmarsiglia]

Diomand?

[@rohitharidas91]

La Hire wishes to kill something 😅

[@EdKolis]

Wait, euchre uses the jokers?

[@littlehorn0063]

The very first variation does, at the very least. Euchre is the first game to use jokers, being added to the trump suit as the second-highest and highest card in there

[@_____snake]

Diamond *

[@MT-xy7fw]

diamond not diomond lol

[@warrenslater3709]

Great video but dude please lose the music, it's bad and makes watching the video really annoying in an environment that already has background music playing

[@granite_4576]

People who don't understand how cards games make sense as an avenue for fortune telling should reconsider what a 'game' even is in the first place.

[@Noko744]

sure

[@thogarrathikarthik2006]

First comment: This is a great explanation