The Best Guide To Playing Cards

A deck of cards is perhaps the essential equipment for any expert or recreational card player.

But how frequently do you consider the cards instead of the game?

We examine them in greater detail to learn more about what they are, where they came from, and why they are the way they are. Discover some of the most unexpected card-related facts by continuing to read.

Calendar Symbolized by Cards

An intriguing explanation for why a deck of cards has 52 cards is that the number of cards equals the number of weeks in a year.

Some claim that the four suits represent the four seasons, while the two colours—red and black—reflect day and night. 

It becomes stranger when you realize there are 12 court cards, which stand in for the 12 months of the year, and 13 cards in each suit, corresponding to the number of lunar cycles.

Additionally, there are 365 symbols total in a deck of cards. Fascinating.

More often than you change your pants, Vegas casinos change their decks

Have you ever wondered how long casino card decks are used before being discarded? Decks can stay in Las Vegas for up to 12 hours before being thrown away or sold. The amount of time a deck spends in play varies on several elements, including how busy the particular table is and whether shuffling is done manually or automatically.

For instance, if you go during a busy period, a deck could only be available for an hour before being replaced by a new pack. But why, in the first place, are cards retired?

This is done to prevent any distinctive features, including bends and scuffs, from tipping off other players attempting to gain an advantage.

There is a reason why a deck of cards contain 52 cards

Ever questioned why a deck of cards has 52 cards? But it wasn’t always the case.

Decks have included various card combinations of 24, 36, 40, 48, and nearly any number in between over the years. 

But 52 took the lead over the rest of the pack to overtake it as the most often used deck size in the world.

Nobody can definitively identify the cause of this.

Although there are numerous opposing hypotheses, it is most likely true that British and French colonization had a significant factor since it may have allowed the conventional French deck size of 52 cards to become popular worldwide.

In a weird place, the first card decks were invented

Do you know where playing cards initially originated? Possibly give it more thought. We’ll be the first to recognize that our initial assumptions were incorrect. Decks of cards were invented in China in the ninth century. Or at least that is the consensus among most academics.

It is widely believed that the first printed playing cards, which were a 32-card domino deck printed on paper, bone, and wood, also came from China.

Cards are thought to have spread gradually through India, Persia, and Egypt before making their way to Europe, allowing for a wide range of variations.

NYC is home to the world’s oldest deck of cards

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is hosting a display of the rarest and allegedly oldest whole deck of cards in the world.

The mid-15th century hand-painted tarot deck from the Netherlands is in excellent shape, indicating the cards were infrequently used.

A collector purchased the deck for $2,800 in the 1970s. After around five years of investigation, the collector sold the deck to the Met for $143,000.

Institutions like Yale University, which even has its card database, hold other centuries-old decks of cards.

The Mamluk deck of cards in Istanbul’s Topkapi Museum is one of the contenders for the oldest and rarest playing card.

Not all cards are what they seem

Governments can use playing cards in various inventive ways during times of conflict.

The US government’s collaboration with a well-known card manufacturer to create unique, top-secret decks for American POWs during World War II is our most outstanding illustration of this (POWs).

When wet, the cards reportedly split up to expose pieces of maps that might be used as escape routes.