The History of Playing Cards

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.

The History of Playing Cards: The Evolution of the Modern Deck by Will Roya

Music:
Creative Commons / Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

[Cipher]

"Jokers don't get used in many games"

*Balatro has entered the chat*

[benselander]

Joker cards are also useful for replacing lost cards; you can just write the specs of whatever card is missing somewhere on the joker card.

[frederikspudnik]

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

[JamieDNGN]

A few corrections and elaborations:
1. Japan didn't get playing cards from China, instead it was Portuguese missionaries and traders who brought cards with them. They were then declared illegal and only criminals would play with them. Hanafuda was actually created as a way to play cards without using what looks like actual playing cards. Nintendo started as a cardmaking company.
2. Italian cards, much like spanish cards, don't really have a queen, instead they have a cavalryman. The queens appear of course in italian tarot decks.
3. Tarot was actually created for card games too! The major arcana were originally the suit of triumphs (it. trionfi), which appropriately triumphs over the other four suits. From this word we get the english word "trump" and german "Trumpf". In france, the game of french tarot is the second most popular traditional card game. Tarot de Marseilles is still made with card play in mind under the name of "tarocco piemontese" in Italy. Tarocco Bolognese is still alive and well in Bologna.
4. The Swiss have their own set of suits also! The swiss suits are a variant of german suits, where leaves are replaced by shields and hearts by roses. These cards are usually called Jasskarte because they're predominantly used to play games of the jass family (like clobyosh or belote, though swiss jasses form a whole sub-family of their own), and to the point that games that are not jasses but are played with these cards are called jass too, e.g. Kaiserjass aka Kaiserspiel (which is a direct descendant of the oldest known european game, Karnöffel)
5. Rank and suit indices are actually a fairly recent addition! A lot of italian latin-suited (and even french-suited) regional decks, which generally are pretty old patterns, have no indices.

[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.

[darreljones]

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.

[RobertShaw-zb]

A king and queen walk into a bar.The bartender say's "Sorry but you're not 21."

[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.

[gophukyurselvs]

8:30 can’t believe you didn’t mention Alice in Wonderland and the Queen who mentioned off with his head

[iguficonquisterannoilmondo]

Here in Italy we use both Italian and French suits. We use the Italian ones to play games that are typically Italian, which require a 40 cards deck (like Scopa and Briscola), and we use the French ones to play internatinal games. Also, we have some games that are Italian, but still use a French deck, like Ramino and Burraco. Usually in this games we do not use just a 52 cards deck, instead we use two of them and combine them together. Also we use the Jokers in this games and they act as a wild card. Basically, these Franch/Italian games require a 108 cards deck, which is pretty hard to shuffle, but you get used to it.

[majkus]

The game Canasta, which for a time rivaled Bridge in popularity in the U.S., used a 108-card pack, two 52-card decks with two jokers each, shuffled together. It is probably the reason that bridge-sized playing cards are still sold with two jokers. 🃏🃏

[ΠαναγιωτηςΔεμεστιχας-μη]

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.

[nirutivan]

In Switzerland (at least in the north-eastern parts) we often use different cards. They are a bit similar to the German ones you explained in the video, as we also use the bell and the acorn, but instead of hearts and Leaves we use roses and shields.

The standard deck of our cards has 36 cards: 6, 7, 8, 9, Banner (which basically functions as the 10), Under (which means subordinate and is equivalent to the Jack), Ober (which means something like lord and replaces the queen), König (the King) and Ass (yeah, that‘s how we call the ace😅).

[yetanotherjohn]

Fascinating! ALSO: face cards are topsy-turvy so they can't be used for fortune telling. Because sorcery is way worse than gambling, amiright? Oh AND: after a night of hard use, late-renaissance cards were basically trash. But as they had blank, white backs, they were prefect for writing brief notes on, especially a name and address, they later became calling cards, and then business cards.

[Larry]

9:50: I have also seen Jokers used (with appropriate marks on the face) as replacements for lost or destroyed cards, or as wild cards in Poker.

[neofoxboi]

The Jokers also simplify printing, as a deck of 54 can easily be made on a 9x6 grid

[christopherfeatherley]

Ohhh so THAT'S why the Queen of Hearts is always saying "off with their heads"!

[Rulies]

06:58 Hey I know that guy! Interesting video, thanks I enjoyed it.

[professorbeanzz]

0:04 you got some massive stones to be bluffing huge at the river with 4 2 off-suit.

[jankxyard]

Here is Slovakia, we still use the old German cards for certain games, but we call the color decks, in rough translation:
heart = redders (červeň)
leaf = greeners (zeleň)
acorn the same (žaluď)
bells = balls (guľa)

The most common game we play with these cards is called "Prší", which can be translated to "It's raining". I know, weird. Other names for this particular game are either "Priest" or "Pharaoh", because these are "Farár" or "Faraón" in Slovak, so they sound similar.

Why do we have such weird names for this game? I have no idea. The game has nothing in its rules resembling a rain or priest or pharaoh.

I've not met a single person here who haven't played this game many times. Everyone here knows this game and I bet it's the same in Czechia and other neighbouring countries.