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From early on in my playing card collecting (which grew out of collecting Tarot decks), I was aware that there were different suit patterns other than the French suits we all know. Mainstream Tarot decks use the Italian suits, more or less: Batons (Clubs), Swords, Cups, and Coins (Money). Spain is similar in subject to Italy, but different in presentation. Also distinct are the German suits and the Swiss suits. The World of Playing Cards (WOPC) site has a wealth of information on suits and patterns.

This is just the sort of thing that appeals to me on a deep level, so I went about obtaining examples of each suit system. I aimed for one "art" deck and one that is more standard/traditional, often a historical reproduction.

For starters, here are my German-suited decks. I have a standard six-card layout that I use to represent my decks on Pinterest (see the link in my signature). This was inspired by the deck views that Kardify presents, but in a simplified way that's easy to scan. If anyone wants to see other particular cards from the decks I will show, let me know!


German Art Deck: Ludwig Burger, 1885
German Historical Deck: Tiroler Spielkarten (Piatnik reproduction)
The Six of Bells has the title of Weli or Welli, and can trump other suits in some regional card games

Wonderful! The Ludwig Burger deck is one of my all time favorites.

An interesting fact about suit symbols, from WOPC:

The fact that the “French system” prevailed in the long term is likely due to the fact that it represents a more rational production technique: while the individual acorns and bells, swords and coins etc. had to be printed from woodblocks, the single-colour only form in "French suits" required just stencil printing. This printing method saves the card maker much labour on the forty number cards.

To provide a bit more detail about German playing cards, the national suits are:

• Hearts (Herzen)
• Bells (Schellen)
• Leaves (Laub)
• Acorns (Eicheln)

Traditional Court cards are King, Obermann, and Untermann. There is no Ace, rather a Daus (2). The total number of cards can vary by region, but both of my decks have 36, i.e. 4 suits of 9 cards each: 2, 6, 7, 8 , 9, 10, Unter, Ober, King.

atzenhofer wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2025 3:16 pm Wonderful! The Ludwig Burger deck is one of my all time favorites.

It is one of my treasures for certain! I like this version in particular, which has subtle indices inside the frame rather than a bold word stamped on both ends. The other version can be seen on Peter Endebrock's site.

I love these - please post pics with great abandon


poking about the web I stumbled across this page with a few interesting decks: https://cards.old.no/mine/

GandalfPC wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2025 4:53 pm I love these - please post pics with great abandon

i need to pace myself so as not to abandon my other responsibilities.

I will share my Swiss decks tomorrow, with Spanish and Italian coming later in the week.

GandalfPC wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2025 4:53 pm I love these - please post pics with great abandon


poking about the web I stumbled across this page with a few interesting decks: https://cards.old.no/mine/

Great link G
You led me on quite a chase
I noticed the most recent reproduction there was 2016 and it was by Guinevere's Games
So I went hunting for GG but the only thing I found was this interesting article

https://tarot-heritage.com/2015/12/03/f ... res-games/

Many of us are aware of the Hunting Deck thanks to Ian Cumpstey's reproduction

The last deck mentioned - The Moorish Playing Cards found by WOPC's Simon Wintle in 1987 (the uncut sheets were being used to stiffen the covers of a 15th Century book!) is most interesting and they may be the oldest known playing cards in Europe

Here is a link to Simon's article

https://www.wopc.co.uk/spain/moorish/a- ... ying-cards

and here is the only thread that I could find on UC about the Moorish cards

viewtopic.php?t=4865&hilit=Moorish

Bee, you found my new hearts desire for me it seems

Found the reproduction (Piatnik Edition Ambras Court Hunting Deck) various places - will keep an eye out for a good price.


One place that has it (about $25 more than on ebay at the moment) has some other interesting offerings…

http://www.tarock.net/rules.htm

Great link G, they are very big cards 3½" x 6"

I can remember looking at Mehow Magic's offering (back when I was buying Ian's offering)
I see they are all gone now. Mehow often has good prices

atzenhofer wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2025 3:16 pm Wonderful! The Ludwig Burger deck is one of my all time favorites.

I really like these too. There was something about them triggering a memory, they look familiar - then I reread Peter's entry. This is the companion deck to Französische Spiel-Karte, Emil Doepler's artwork, part of a collective gift of games to Crown-Prince Friedrich-Wilhelm and his wife Victoria for their silver wedding anniversary. I love that deck.

acetofive wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2025 5:33 am

atzenhofer wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2025 3:16 pm Wonderful! The Ludwig Burger deck is one of my all time favorites.

I really like these too. There was something about them triggering a memory, they look familiar - then I reread Peter's entry. This is the companion deck to Französische Spiel-Karte, Emil Doepler's artwork, part of a collective gift of games to Crown-Prince Friedrich-Wilhelm and his wife Victoria for their silver wedding anniversary. I love that deck.

Me too! Stumbling across those courts was one of the things that spurred my interest in vintage decks. I have a reproduction printed in Russia; there is one by F.X. Schmidt that seems to be more accessible.

As promised, here are my representatives of the Swiss suit pattern. Like the German decks, these have 36 cards and the courts are King, Ober, Unter. Two of the suits are the same, and two differ.

• Shields (Schilten)
• Bells (Schellen)
• Roses (Rosen)
• Acorns (Eicheln)

Tens have a banner, and what they call an Ace (As) has two suit symbols.

Swiss Art Deck: Schweizer Luxus-Jasskarte No. 41
Swiss Historical Deck: Schaffhausen Swiss reproduction by A.G. Muller

The Hermitage reproduction? That's a good one. Sturdy box.

acetofive wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:12 am The Hermitage reproduction? That's a good one. Sturdy box.

Yes, that's the one. Thanks for reminding me. Temporary brain fog; I should have looked at my Pinterest entry!

It's too cold to sit in my computer room for long today, when the bedroom is > 5 degrees warmer. Alas, I have a desktop Mac, not a laptop, so I can't bring it upstairs with me. I do visit the forum on my iPad, but all my photos and reference materials are on the Mac.

When it comes to Italian playing cards, this is a case where I was able to get an inexpensive art deck that was still available at the time I bought it. The challenge this time was finding a historical deck. The one I have is a modern example of a traditional style, but I'd like to find a vintage example or reproduction. Complicating this is that I wanted to stick with one-way courts for consistency with all my other regional decks. There are more regional variations in Italy than any other country, and only a couple of them are one-way.

From WOPC:

The generally accepted view is that the Arabs introduced playing cards to Europe, via both the Iberian and Italian peninsulas, in the second half of the fourteenth century, and that European cards evolved from the suit system and composition of these cards. The famous Topkapi Museum pack, made from several incomplete Mamluk packs, clearly shows four suits of 13 cards including 3 court cards. Through a process of assimilation and adaptation the original Arabic suit symbols, and even the name na'ib, became Westernised. The typical Italian suit system uses the same symbolic objects as the Spanish (cups, coins, swords and clubs), with some differences of style dating back to an early stage in their history.

Italian Suits:

• Swords (Spade)
• Cups (Coppe)
• Rods (Bastoni)
• Coins (Denari)

I'll talk more about this in the next entry, but the difference between Italian and Spanish suits is in the shape of the suit symbols. Italian cards have curved blades for Spade and straight rods for Bastoni. Both of my decks have 40 cards. Unlike the German and Swiss, it's the higher pips (8, 9, 10) that are dropped.

Italian Art Deck: Charta by Sergio Ruffolo (Dal Negro, 1980)
Italian Historical Deck: Trentine Pattern (Modiano)

I forgot to point out, the Italian pattern has all male courts: Knave/Page (Fante), Knight (Cavallo), and King (Re). It is interesting, then, that tarocchi decks (ancestors of the Tarot) added a Lady/Queen (Donna/Regina), and then it's the Knight that got dropped on the way back down to a 52-card deck.

I suppose one of my reproduction Tarot decks could serve for the Historic example, but I need to use one that's actually from Italy and not France (as in the Tarot de Marseille, the Ur-Tarot).

Great thread, thanks for sharing!

Good stuff Felicity - you need to save your important reference material and photos to One Drive to have access from your iPad too

Honeybee wrote: ↑Wed Jan 22, 2025 1:54 pm Good stuff Felicity - you need to save your important reference material and photos to One Drive to have access from your iPad too

I use Dropbox, but your point is well taken.

Speaking of reference material, I'll share a couple of snapshots here. You can see why I chose the Trentine pattern as my example of Italian suits. The WOPC page on this pattern shows an 18th century example, something I would be interested in adding to my collection.

Oh well, the Italian Tarot deck I had in mind to act as my historic example has the Spanish-style clubs.


In case you looked at the Trentine deck and were confused by what I said about curved swords, here is the 7 of swords together with the court cards. That intricate pattern is also what you see in the Italian luxury Tarocchi decks that are the oldest examples known to exist. I won't go off on that tangent. The Knave and King hold straight swords but you can see the curved sword with the Knight.

I noticed an oddity in the suit diagram I shared above. That came from Encyclopedia Brittanica, but they have the swords and clubs in the wrong row. FIFY.

I'm unfamiliar to a lot that's being discussed here and learning. I just wanted to say it's great to see you active on here Felicity!

Now we come to the end of my alternate suit examples. (Don't worry, I have more topics to explore.)

My Spanish art deck was not particularly expensive (it's a reproduction), but it was perhaps the most difficult to trace. I fell in love with a single card image I saw in a book, and it took time just to figure out what I was looking for. Then, having no luck on eBay or at the European retailers I knew of, I turned to a Spanish language site and managed to purchase a copy.

Spanish suits are the same subjects seen in Italy:

• Swords (Espadas)
• Cups (Copas)
• Clubs (Bastos)
• Coins (Oros, literally "Golds")

Here, the swords are straight and the clubs are wooden cudgels. On the pip cards, the symbols are not interwoven as they are on Italian decks. Uniquely, Spanish decks have frames which signify the suits at a glance in the same way an index does. Cups have one break in the frame, Swords two, Clubs three, and Coins none. Then name for this marking is "la pinta" .

The courts are Knave (Sota), Knight (Caballo, literally "Horse") and King (Rey). Decks may have 48 cards (pips 1-9) or 40 (pips 1-7). In the former case they usually have two Jokers as well, for a total of 50.

Spanish Art Deck: Naipe Nacional (1970 reproduction of 1939 design)

Spanish Historical Deck: Baraja Goyesca (1982 reproduction of 1814 design)

An example of interlaced swords and clubs (Italian, left) vs separated (Spanish, right)

The Spanish patterns are some of my favorites. Great posts.

While I'm looking at these decks again, I figured I would show you some more pips. Here are the Italian and Spanish Cups and Coins:


And here are the German and Swiss pips. Both of my German decks have scenic pips, and that seems to be true for most of the one-way decks I can find online.

I'll take a little break from the history lesson and just show you some vintage decks. I credit (or curse ) Pinterest for some of my early fixations. One of them was Emil Doepler's Französische Spielkarte, shown earlier. Another has been shared by acetofive in his dedicated topic: unpublished illustrations by Alexander Beideman, printed in deck form by Alexander Lutkovskiy.


Perhaps my greatest obsession was a deck by F. Simon, known as Hollandaises. I am lucky enough to have purchased a version from Joop; this very deck is displayed on his site.


ETA: This one has German indices:

• König
• Dame
• Bube

I am still obsessed with the photos I first saw, which are from a patience-sized deck. None of the many examples at trionfi.eu quite match, so I think these images were cleaned up by someone.

I feel like having a theme today: Four Seasons. The birds visiting our yard seem to think Spring is on the way, even if the mounds of snow disagree with them.

Les Quatre Saisons, Jean Picart le Doux, 1964
There is a corresponding version with yellow-gold backs, but I don't know whether they were ever packaged together.

ETA: French Indices :

• Roi
• Dame
• Valet

I'm also seeing an artifact in all my scans over the past few days. I fear I may have to invest in a new printer/scanner soon.