Omg! One of my obsessions!!!
Whenever I travel somewhere, as a souvenir, I buy the local design of playing cards. Even within the colour-regions there are many variations. I might be biased because I’m dutch, but the Dutch Cut is one of my favourites, because of the architecture on the aces!
In Italy every region has their own design! (Even within the ones shown in this map.)
This surprised me when I was younger. Heart, diamond, spade, and club seemed so foreign to me. For the record, in Spain we call them copas (cups), oros (coins (literally golds)), bastos (clubs), and espadas (swords).
Also, the pictures used in the map are not the most commonly used ones here. this (top row) is what most cards use
Funny enough, in Portuguese, the names for the sets are
dirtydirect translations of the Spanish versions, but applied to the French icons. It didn’t make much sense to me calling a losange “golds”, or a heart “cups”, a leaf “swords”, and a clover leaf “sticks”.Edit: autocorrupt
You do realize that that “club” is a gherkin, right? :)
Fwiw, I like all the properly illustrated variants so much better than the French variant that always feels lifeless to me.
I don’t think so. The other variants of the Spanish-inspired cards are clearly staves. Besides, basto is very, very close to bastón, the word for a staff like a walking stick. Gherkins are called pepinillos
It was an attempt at a joke. The one version you linked to is green and kind of looks like a gherkin. That’s all.
Looks like you
Feel free to join !esp@lemm.ee for a Spanish speaking community!
I heard about this, and I was excited to pick up a different style when I went to Germany. I got there, and all of the cards used the standard, international suits. No one knew what I was talking about.
The German suite is most common in east Germany. west Germans use the french deck, or if they’re playing German card games they use the tournament German deck (which is just the french deck with different colours)
Not just any colours but the ones of the German deck: Diamonds are orange because bells are orange, and spades are green because leaves are green. Also spades and leaves look almost identical anyway. Hearts are the same, and acorns become clubs.
And just to be pedantic: It’s not the “tournament deck”, it’s specifically the tournament deck for Skat, adopted when the East and German leagues reunified to avoid confusion. You’ll be hard-pressed to get your hands on a 6 or below in those colours because Skat uses 32 cards.
I do think it’s a good idea in general, though.
The standard cards are everywhere, but the German variant is still used, at least in bavaria. Just talk with some grandpas in the village restaurants and they will gleefully get their cards out.
Which standard? There are plenty! ;p
Huh. That explains why in Portugal hearts is called “copas”. Also in Portugal diamonds are called “gold”. The design is the French one, but the names stayed the original ones.
All these designs have the same origin in tarot cards, they just evolved slightly differently.
Reading more about it, it seems like these are the original Latin suits, and the French tried to, and succeeded, in replacing them.
But “sticks” and “swords” are inverted, at least in this table.
I’m pretty sure this table is incorrect. Swords, spades and cloves are the same. Sticks, clubs, acorns are the same.
Is there a particular reason that the French style is so much more abstract than the others?
Cheaper to print in bulk
Italy is not completely correct. The orange area uses the drawing of a club (as in a thick wodden stick), they’re called “bastoni” (“sticks”).
RavenFellBlade @startrek.website
Love that the Spanish are using Tarot suits for their standard playing cards.
The spanish names are copas (cups), oros (gold), espadas(swords) y bastos ( clubs)
Actually in France we have both design!
The second one is rarer but you can see it on the “Tarot de Marseille”
It’s a different set of cards, in this form there called “lames” (blades) or “arcanes” (arcana)
The set is divided in 4 colors also called family: “épée” (sword), “coupe” (cup, but think of it as the same type of cup as the saint grail), “bâton” (club) and “denier” (it’s an old coin)
This compose the 52 “arcanes mineurs”
In addition there also 22 “arcanes majeurs” called “atouts”
And it is usually recognize because it’s the base of the Tarot use for divination
But now it’s generally used to play the eponymous game of “Tarot”, a very good and very old game that me and my friend played a lot at uni
And with “both” from what it looks like you mean the french and italian styles.
Yes but also not only, we have MANY more design of tarot card, especially when considering “atouts/arcanes majeurs” as here a deck of tarot is an object of play but also an object of collection
Here an example
Love that the Spanish are using Tarot suits for their standard playing cards.
Curved. Swords.
Huh, pretty cool. I live in the blue area, and always thought others used the same type, because that’s what I’ve seen in all the places I’ve been. Is there data available for the rest of the world?
In latin America spanish style cards are often used, and you might find some southern italian designs with italian-americans. But for the most part the rest of the world uses the standard “french” suits.
Also, nowadays if you ask for a deck of cards in most of the other places, you’re still likely to get a french-suited deck. Usually the american style (think of your typical bycicle brand card deck).
When I tried to buy a dutch style deck here in the Netherlands they didn’t even have it at my local board game store! I had to order them online.
There’s a Dutch suit too?? I feel like some island inhabitant who just learned that there’s a whole world out there full of people, planes, porn, and pop culture, after having grown up alone with his coconuts. This is definitely a rabbit hole I need to explore.
Only Latin American country I’ve been to is Brazil, and at least the deck of cards we had there was French suit.
The brazil thing seems logical, since Portugal uses french suited cards too.
It’s not it’s own suit, we use french suits. But the design is it’s own thing, yeah!
Found this website that should answer your question: https://www.wopc.co.uk/explore/suits
Thanks, but that URL doesn’t load on my phone, so I’ll check it out on my PC tomorrow. I’m curious if all the countries I’ve visited have used French style.
Not only do we have our own deck, we also have our own games, ask about the mus or the subastado
Thank God, I always assumed Germany was the only country with a weird ass set of playing cards
Everything is fine except for the Itallians.
Today i learned that what in romanian is called “black heart” is called spades or pikes in english
As a Bavarian I grew up with the German set but I myself prefer the french one. Don’t know why, I guess I just like it‘s style/asthetics more.
Didn‘t new about the Italian and Spanish ones until today.
