Playing Card history and trivia
Across time, playing-card manufacturers produced decks meant for other uses beyond simple card playing including: instruction, propaganda and advertising. French suits were a revision of the German ones; keeping hearts but replacing bells with diamonds, acorns with clovers while clubs and leaves became pikes or spades.
The term ‘Joker’ has its origins in the germanic spelling of Euchre (Juker or Juckerspiel). Around 1860 the Joker card evolved in Euchre to replace the blank card being used as the ‘best bower’ or highest trump card.
DID YOU KNOW The card game ‘Hearts’ aka Rickety Kate in Australia shares some similarities and is the closest established game to BAM! Both are trick-taking games. It’s also known as Black Lady, Black Maria or Black Widow which is a reference to the Queen of Clubs aka ‘Calamity Jane’ and has a 13 point […]
DID YOU KNOW A perfect shuffle is called a ‘riffle.‘ There are two types: an ‘in shuffle‘ where a pack of cards is split exactly in half (a bottom and top) and then each half of the deck is interwoven so that every other card comes from the same half of the deck.
In the mid to late 90’s people began getting computers in their homes. Microsoft touted ‘Solitaire’ as the way to teach them how to use the computer mouse but in reality Wes Cherry (its creator and an intern at Microsoft at the time) said, “it was something just to have fun with.”
