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Monday, July 12, 2010

History of Cards & Tricks

Although it is not known for sure, it is believed that playing cards originated in China during the 9th century CE. These cards had four suits: coins, strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks), myriads (of coins or of strings), and tens of myriads (where a myriad is 10000). These cards were marked with the numerals of 2–9 in the first three suits and numerals 1–9 in the "tens of myriads". It is possible that these cards may have been used as paper currency or as ante. If this were true they were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for like the modern trading card games.

Playing cards first entered Europe in the late 14th century, but had a very different design from Chinese playing cards. It is academically accepted that the Mamelukes of Egypt introduced their cards to Europe. A pack of Mameluke cards consisted of four suits (polo sticks, coins, swords, cups) of 13 cards like modern playing cards.

It was once believed that
playing cards were based on the Tarot's minor arcana. Three of the Tarot suits (coins, cups, and swords) are shared with the Mameluke deck and the Tarot's fourth suit, the wand, looks very similar to the polo stick suit used in a Mameluke deck. This similarity lead to the belief that playing cards were based on the more well-known Tarot.

Because of the Tarot's use in divination (more commonly known as fortune telling), it (and the playing card by association) became linked with the Romani people, who practiced various forms of divination. This lead to the belief that playing cards originated with the Romani people, who brought the Tarot cards and playing cards to Europe.

There are two faults to this theory. First, there is no known connection between the Tarot and the Romani people. Both existed separate from each other for quite some time and popular culture reinforced the connection between the two. It is theorized that Tarot cards originated from the ‘Saracen’ region in the 1400's. Additionally, the word Tarot is believed by some scholars to be derived from the Arabic word "turuq" which means "four ways".

The second fault has to do with the period of time when the Romani were first documented in Europe. There was no evidence for the Romani people in Europe until forty years after playing cards first appeared. The first documented evidence of playing cards in Europe predates the appearance of the Romani by forty years with a ban on their use in 1367, Bern, Switzerland by the clergy. It is a common belief that this ban was because of the cards' purported connection to witchcraft and the tarot, but in actuality it was a response to their use in gambling. However, the power of the church did little to stop the spread of playing cards amongst royalty and the very wealthy.

King Charles VI of France had a deck of playing cards made for him. In one of his diaries, Charles notes the playing cards were used for "diversion". Royalty were many of the first users of playing cards because they were so expensive. Since the printing press had not yet been invented, the cards had to be painstakingly painted by hand.

Elizabeth I of England was particularly enthralled and in 1602 paid an Italian magician 200 crowns to perform card tricks such as
"telling of any card that is thought, or changing one card from another though it be held by any man never so hard under his hand". Likely these tricks relied on the cards being marked. A person would use the same deck for years. Cards would become marked over time, but would not be replaced because of the prohibitive price.

Card tricks became a staple of many stage magicians once playing cards could be mass produced. As playing cards became cheaper to produce, audiences became more exposed to card tricks and were more discriminating about things such as marked cards. In response card tricks became more complicated. With the popularity of magic in the 19th and early 20th century, great magicians like Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston included many tricks in their acts.

The look of the modern deck took shape when the cards arrived in the United States in the 1800's. Their look was changed due to their popularity. Around this time the Joker was first seen in decks and were used in American card games. The other change was in the use of indexes (the small numbers and letters at the top-left and bottom-right of playing cards). These were invented to make it easier to sort through decks of cards.

The modern deck is numerologically similar to the calendar with 52 cards , each representing a year. If the Jack is valued at eleven, the Queen is twelve and King is thirteen, there are three hundred and sixty four pips. One Joker could represent the 'missing pip' to make up the missing day in a calendar year. For a time, there was only one Joker in a playing card deck. When the second Joker was later added, it could be seen as representing the missing day in a leap year. The four suits of a present-day deck are believed to represent love (hearts), wealth (diamonds), knowledge (cloverleaf), and death (spade).

At one time the most common ways to learn card tricks was either through a book of tricks or being shown by someone who knew how. Unfortunately books varied in quality and learning through another person was limited to what they knew how to do. With the advent of the internet, access to information on a variety of tricks and detailed videos making learning tricks convenient and easy.


References:


http://www.trickmagic.com/history_of_playing_cards.htm Accessed July, 10, 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://www.wopc.co.uk/magic/index.html Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://www.wopc.co.uk/magic/theory.html Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/playing-cards.htm Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00804/tarot-cards-frameset.htm Accessed July 10, 2010.

http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00804/history-playing-cards-frameset.htm
Accessed July 10, 2010.


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