h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Playing Card - A880076
Author: BohemiAbsinthe (Thingite/Bodhisattva of Cool) - U208986

This article is about the basic playing card and it's many uses.

Hi there,

This is a really interesting topic for an entry. I like it a lot, but I felt that some bits could be expanded somewhat.

Do you have any information on who designed playing cards, especially the 'standard' images for the jack, queen and king that we see now?

Also, I don't think Trading Cards are particularly relevant to this entry as they are not playing cards. You could say a lot more about interesting card games though. I don't know what you play in the US, but some of the classic card-game types are Bridge, Canasta, Whist, Rummy. And although in the US, the standard poker game may be associated with a less-than-salubrious setting, in the UK card games such as I have mentioned above were seen as amusements of the idle rich. In fact, during the 18th century, the English upper classes had huge gambling problems, playing card games all day and all night.

>>frequently ignored part of our society’s lifestyle.

Is it frequently ignored? I wouldn't have thought so. Do you mean frequently ignored as a cultural symbol? I think it is used all the time. In fact, one of the great things about playing cards is that there are so many cultural references. Diana being called the 'Queen of Hearts', dodgy geezers on the street doing 'Find The Lady' scams, the Ace of Spades (Motorhead) or Aces High (Iron Maiden) as popular hairy metal song titles, people using the phrase 'pick a card, any card' as part of the lingo.

>>the common Bicycle deck card

What's a Bicycle deck?

>>These, I believe

Remove first person reference

>>Tarot is another form of "Card Game" to some

Was it card game before it was a fortune-telling aid? Or not? I'm not clear from this sentence.

Nice entry!

Gubernatrix

Nice entry on the whole, but there's a few things I'm not sure about. The opening sentence for a start.

>>The playing card was, as most historians believe, originally created 1000ad in China.

Sounds like you are passing judgement on the historians "They believe it, and I'm telling you they are right."...sorta thing. A little re-wording to summat like 'Most historians beleive the playing card was originally created in China circa 1000AD' should sort it.

And listing the playing cards... I would have done it by suit meself, and King first. But that might just be me.

Oh, and i concur with Gubernatrix - where does the term Bicycle deck come from?

And just one more...

>>A little-known fact of early versions of the playing-card deck was that the Jack Daniel’s deck in particular had what was known as an “Empty Card”.

If the deck was invented around the first millenium is the Jack Daniel's deck really that 'early'?

Nice entry though, just a few things that need clearing up, I think.


Geggs

>>>>A little-known fact of early versions of the playing-card deck was that the Jack Daniel’s deck in particular had what was known as an “Empty Card”.

>>If the deck was invented around the first millenium is the Jack Daniel's deck really that 'early'?

Good point... do you think the re-wording of "The 'Empty Card" was introduced in the Jack Daniel's deck, to serve the purpose of keeping the game in play..."? I think it works well, and I'll have to re-word the subsequent sentences, but what do you think?

I've seen rules for card games on this site that are much more bizarre and abstruse than Trading Card games. There's no reason they wouldn't fit under the subject.

They do open another can of worms because there is a whole small genre of card games with different images on the cards, different card set sizes, and different quantities of playable cards. Nuclear Escalation and Frog Juice come to mind.

Perhaps I've misinterpreted then. I thought Trading Cards were cards with pictures of sports stars (or whoever) on them that you swopped in the playground.

This entry seems to be about the traditional playing card with jacks and suits and stuff. Until the last sentence, which is why I think it's not particularly relevant.

If you're suggesting that a playing card can be anything that's rectangular, made of paper, and has some kind of image on it, then maybe the entry needs a definition or another title.

The cards I am speaking of are different than you suppose. It's entirely possible that they don't need to be included in this entry, but if they aren't, the entry needs a more specific or a different title.

There are traditional cards, that come exactly 54 a set and have the images on them that everyone knows. Financial transactions can occur upon playing with these, but they are not based on ownership of the card or card set that allows the temporary owner to earn money.

There are plain trading cards, which have an image and other sometimes relevant information on them, and are traded based on percieved rarity and value of the image, these images may or may not be known to the average person. A major league baseball card (which depict a sporting hero), or a peace officer card (which depict a neighborhood bobby)are examples of this. Any rules for doing the commercial transaction are unique between any particular buyer or seller, and are usually in earnest, so I don't think of these as playing cards.

There are games which use only cards, a fixed number of which must always exist and are all known to the players, and which have images on them that do not correspond at all to clubs/kings/David Beckham/Officer Krupke. The mensa game 'Set', and the trading game 'Pit' are examples of this. There is no commercial transaction here, unless you wish to bet on the side like you can with a regular deck of cards.

There are games which use only cards, but nobody has the same set of cards, as they have an open ended quantity of cards and are distributed randomly. These are called Trading Card Games. 'Pokemon' trading card game, and 'Magic: the Gathering' are examples of this. In order to make these cards work into a game, the rules need to be rather abstruse. Since nobody gets the same set of cards, but the game is playable in different fashions and some cards are percieved as more artistically or game-practiceably interesting, some of the cards of the games have a value surplus to the original cost of the card from the manufacturer and are purchased/sold like trading cards in addition to the game that can be played with the cards. Some of these games have a 'you must forfeit one of your cards if you lose' rule.

Interesting article and great conversation about it!

IMHO: There should be an entire seperate para about playing cards, other than the 52 card deck. Just a mention really. . .Pokemon and Magic certianly deserve top billing in that pile, but recently there has been a slurry of new games based on cards, i.e. "Playing Cards" for Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc. . .

Also (something I should have noticed in WW): you can link to a great article on Jack Daniels: A794379. I wrote it, heh, so I should have mentioned that in WW.

Finally, Bicycle is a brand of playing cards in the US, and can pretty much go nameless in the article. Bicycle is the STANDARD of playing cards in the states. Just saying Standard cards should work fine.

Some work to do, but nice topic and good writing so far. . .

Friar

Well, I like it, for what it's worth...

Just a couple of points - where or what is Gunnysack’s page about playing cards? Is it worth a link? And also I'm not sure about you saying "us Yanks" - I think I understand your intended tone and I like it, but it does fall a bit into the 'first person' trap - after all, the guide itself is universal in authorship rather than being American or British or Irish or whatever.

Hi there, Neuston!

There have been a lot of interesting and potentially helpful comments in this thread. Do you have any responses? Are you thinking of adding any of this material into the entry?

You mention the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The Queen was never called "the Red Queen". She was the Queen of Hearts. The name "Red Queen" was used in "Through the Looking-glass" for a chess piece.

There are still a few places in this entry where you refer to yourself: "us Yanks". These will have to be removed.

Alright, I think I'll make some changes soon. I've been abiet distraced over the last months or so...

* bump * hopefully the author is still lurking although they haven't posted for three weeks.

Just one comment from me : The article seems to end quite abruptly, it needs some sort of closing paragraph just to round it off.

spelugx -- Scout

Another three weeks... This is too good to be wasted, though needs work...

Flea Market?

I would second that, if the author wasn't still on the scene. So I sort of think we should give them a couple more days before we do anything.

Researcher PSG

I think, especially in light of current events, something needs to be said about 'special' decks of cards, like the Iraqi ones the US forces were given. There's an article about them in this weeks' Time magazine, don't know if anyone saw it!

Just a little addition to the tarot section (if anything is ever going to be done to this article). In Europe, Tarot cards are still used a gaming cards and can be bought in supermarkets. (I remember walking along the beach on holiday and seeing a group of Italians getting *very* worked up about the game they were playing.)

Legend has it that they were originally for purposes of divination, but it's much more likely that they were simply a "fancy" pack of cards. But the history of Tarot is whole other article.... any takers?

deemikay

Hmmmm.... The author on this one appears to have disappeared for the time being -- anyone up for a move to the Flea Market?

Seconded

Fleamarket looks fine.

spelugx

it needs stuff on european suits: coins, cups, swords and staves. also, european decks are smaller, but i dont remmeber how. also, id like to know the histories behind the symbols. i know there are some.