The universal acceptance has given a tremendous

Because we are all familiar with the modern deck of playing cards, a standard deck of Bicycle rider back playing cards seems very "normal" and "traditional" to most of us. But to people of the past, a deck like this is anything but normal! The reality is that playing cards have undergone a radical transformation since their first beginnings several centuries ago. Our modern playing cards evolved into a deck of 52 cards with four suits in red and black and with two Jokers by making a journey that took hundreds of years and involved travelling through many countries. In fact, the most significant elements that shaped today's deck were produced by the different cultures and countries that playing cards travelled through in order to get to the present day. In this article, we will survey the history of playing cards, emphasizing in particular the geographic influences that have determined what modern playing cards look like today.

Uganda and largely the East African Community was colonized by the British and playing cards was taught to Afrcian communities by their colonialists in the late 1880's. Playing card later became a household game in the 1990's due to increase in education and exposure.

Our journey across the channel actually begins in Belgium, from where massive quantities of cards began to be exported to England, although soldiers from France may also have helped introduce playing cards to England. Due to heavy taxes in France, some influential card makers emigrated to Belgium, and several card factories and workshops began to appear there. Rouen in particular was an important center of the printing trade. Thousands of decks of Belgian made playing cards were exported to countries throughout Europe, including England. In view of this, it is no surprise that English card players have virtually always been using the French designs.

But playing cards did not pass through Europe without the English leaving their stamp on them. To begin with, they opted to use the names hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs to refer to the suits that the French had designated as coeurs, piques, carreaux, and trefles. We do not know why, but they based two of the suit names (spades and clubs) on the names of the Italian deck rather than directly translate the French terms piques (pikes) and trefles (clovers); one possible explanation is the Spanish suits were exported to England before French ones. The word diamond is also somewhat unexpected, given that the English word for carreau (wax-painted tiles used in churches) at the time was lozenge. Whatever the reasons, it is to usage in England that we owe the names that we use for the suits today.

It is also to the English that we owe the place of honour given to the Ace of Spades, which has its roots in taxation laws. The English government passed an Act that cards could not leave the factory until they had proof that the required tax on playing cards had been paid. This initially involved hand stamping the Ace of Spades - probably because it was the top card. But to prevent tax evasion, in 1828 it was decided that from now on the Ace of Spades had to be purchased from the Commissioners for Stamp Duties, and that it had to be specially printed along with the manufacturer's name and the amount of duty paid. As a result, the Ace of Spades tended to have elaborate designs along with the manufacturer's name. Only in 1862 were approved manufacturers finally allowed to print their own Ace of Spades, but the fate of the signature Ace of Spades had been decided, and the practice of an ornate Ace with the manufacturer's name was often continued. As a result, to this day it is the one card in a deck that typically gets special treatment and elaborate designs.

The artwork on English court cards appears to have been largely influenced by designs produced in Rouen, Belgium, which produced large amounts of playing cards for export. They include details such as kings with crowns, flowing robes, beards, and longish hair; queens holding flowers and sceptres; and knaves that are clean-shaven, wearing caps, and holding arrows, feathers or pikes. But whatever variety was present, slowly disappeared as a result of the industrious efforts of Briton Thomas de la Rue, who was able to reduce the prices of playing cards due to increased output and productivity. This mass production he accomplished in the 1860s gave him a position of dominance in the industry, and the smaller manufacturers with their independent designs eventually were swallowed up, leading to the more standardized designs as we know them today. De la Rue's designs were first modernized by Reynolds in 1840, and then again by Charles Goodall in 1860, and it is this design that effectively still used today. It was also around this time that double-ended court cards became common (to avoid the need to turn the cards, thereby revealing to your opponent that you had court cards in your hand) and the existing full-length designs were adapted to make them double-ended.