Another fascinating aspect of the deck of cards is
how they correspond to the calendar. The two colours
(red and black) relate to the two parts of a day –
namely daytime and night. The four suits correspond
to the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and
winter. There are twelve court cards, just as there are
months in a year, and 13 cards in each suit are a
match for the number of weeks in each quarter. The
52 cards in the deck correspond to the 52 weeks in a
year and, if you add up all the values of the cards in a
deck (assuming 11 for the Jack, 12 for the Queen, 13
for the King), plus add one for the Joker, you end up
with the exact number of days in a year – 365.While the first packs were printed on paper and
wood, modern-day decks are a marvel of engineering
and design. Good-quality playing cards are made of
multiple layers of laminated sheets of paper, glued
together. The glue does more than to stick the layers
together. In fact, it is the glue that gives the playing
cards their distinctive snap. And when they lose that
snap (the life of a deck in a Las Vegas casino can be
as short as an hour), you can count on our inventive
makers to put them to good use.laying cards have a long history that
dates back several centuries. While
their exact origin remains a matter of
speculation, most historians agree that
playing cards were invented by the
Chinese during the Tang dynasty, in or
around the 9th century. Another inconstant aspect
has been the number of cards in a deck. There have
been several variations over the centuries, with the
popular ones being 24, 32, and 48 cards.
The variations continued to flourish even after the
deck made its way into Europe sometime in the 14th
century. For suits, the Italians used cups, swords,
coins, and batons; the Germans used
acorns, leaves, hearts, and bells; and the
Spanish preferred coins, cups, swords,
and cudgels. In the end, it was the French
suits of spades, hearts, clubs, and
diamonds that stuck. The 52-card deck
was a French variation as well, which was
taken all over the world by the French
colonialists until it became the standard.
French card decks are modelled after renowned
historical figures. The King of Hearts is Charlemagne,
King of Diamonds is Julius Caesar, King of Clubs is
Alexander the Great, and King of Spades is King David
from the Bible. The queen cards have had a mixed
roster that includes Pallas (warrior goddess;
equivalent to the Greek Athena or Roman Minerva),
Rachel (biblical mother of Joseph), Argine (an
anagram of Regina which is Latin for Queen), and
Judith (of the Apocrypha).PP
There’s more than one way to enjoy a deck
FEATURE
Improviser’s Toolbox: Playing cards
“The variations continued to
flourish even after the deck
made its way into Europe
sometime in the 14th century”PLAYINGPLAYING
CARDS CARDS
Mayank Sharma
@geekybodhiMayank is a Padawan
maker with an
irrational fear of drills.
He likes to replicate
electronic builds,
and gets a kick out
of hacking everyday
objects creatively.