New playing cards without ladies and kings and what lies behind them

Deck of playing cards It is one of those things that each of us held in our hands. I’ve always wondered why these symbols are on the maps. And the other day I read that a new deck has been created in the Netherlands. kingless. And, imagine, it was sold out: in a few months people bought more than 1.5 thousand copies.

I wonder what the popularity is. new-deck. I went into this and learned a lot of interesting facts. For example, about the appearance of playing cards, their history, as well as modern trends. Few people know that. Do you want me to?



The cards we see today have a long history. About that later. According to one classification, there are about 630 card games. They are divided into adults, gambling, children, family, folk, intellectual, commercial and others.

There are some. general rules and terminology: shuffling (shuffling), deck removal, surrender, prank, funnel, trump card, suit, figure. There are various card techniques that are perfectly mastered by card cheaters and magicians.



The first playing cards found their distribution in East Asia. They came to Europe in the XIV century, obviously. through Arab merchants and sailors importers of many goods from China. For a long time they denied their involvement. But in fact, the followers of Islam even created their own deck. And so The laws of the Qur’an forbid depicting people.They decorated maps only with geometric patterns, the so-called arabesques.



In Russia, maps have been known since the XVII century. At first, card games were persecuted and considered a serious offense. Only under Tsar Peter the attitude towards them in Russia softened. He rarely played, but he set up card production.

During the reign of Alexander I, a monopoly was introduced on such production (acted until 1917). The income went to the maintenance of the Empress’s department, which is engaged in the care of orphans. Paper for making maps was supplied defective She was rubbed with talc on special equipment. Therefore, the cards were smooth, sliding and called satin. They weren't cheap.



Standard deck of cards Standard (aka French) deck 54 cards: 52 main cards belonging to one of the four suits and having one of the 13 advantages, as well as 2 special cards jokers. For various games, both the entire deck and its shortened versions are used, for example, from sixes to aces.

It is noteworthy that each of the cardboard represents one of the historical or mythical characters: the king of spades - King David, the lady of spades - the goddess of wisdom and knowledge Athena, the king of tref - Alexander the Great, the lady of tref - Argina (anagram Latin Regina - Queen), the king of tambourine - Julia Caesar, the lady of tambourine - biblical Rachel, the king of worms - Charlemagne, the lady of hearts - Helena of Troy.



Different countries use different decks. Up to the fact that there cards have other suit symbols and other pictures.

A student from the Netherlands Indy Mellink came up with a deck of cards without kings and ladies, reports Reuters. The girl was outraged that the generally accepted rules put the king above the lady. She saw this as a typical example. centuries-old inequalityWhen a man a priori has more influence and power than a woman. And I decided to change that by designing a modern deck.

“If we have such a hierarchy in the game, then this non-obvious inequality affects people’s daily lives as well. Even small things like that play an important role, Indy Mellink explained.



Jacks, ladies and kings in the new deck she replaced with gold bars, silver coins and bronze shields. In accordance with this, he named his version of the maps. GSB (Gold, Silver, Bronze).

The first few dozen decks were bought up by close and familiar girls. Then she put up new cards for sale online. And in a couple of months received about 1.5 thousand orders from different parts of the world. Students are interested in developing Even game stores. But in order to use a novelty, for example, in a casino, you would need to redo it. gameplay. While this is not going to do, but do not exclude such a turn of events in the future.



© From the editorial office, Sociologists confirmed the fact that over the past year, attention to playing cards has revived. The reason for this was a long quarantine: to do something to occupy themselves, many cardboard. This interest will likely continue this year. You can read about other trends in 2021 here.



© Freepik Do you, our readers, play cards? What do you think of this new deck of cards? Tell me in the comments.