Identifying and Classifying Playing Cards

Both sides of the modern playing-card - the faces and the backs - are useful for classification. Standard faces are typically a combination of numeric 'pip' cards and courts, while non-standard card faces can - and do - show just about anything. The backs can be plain (as they were for many centuries) or patterned, or they may show a photographic souvenir or advertising or indeed any kind of artistic design. Backs should all be the same of course, but even here there are exceptions like deliberately marked decks.

Card Faces: Standard or Non-Standard

The Standard English Pattern

Card Faces: Standard Cards from around the World

The first time one encounters standard cards from another country, it may come as a surprise. Playing cards were in use in Europe some time before we had them in England and the rest of the UK. Separate suit systems evolved in Spain and Italy (among the earliest cards, and broadly similar in design) and in Germany and France. It is the French style, specifically the Rouen regional pattern, which the English makers adopted. Additionally India and Japan have also created card games with quite different structures. Most other countries use local variants of these European patterns, and cards with indices of course have local lettering in the abbreviations for the equivalent of Jacks, Queens and Kings.

These differences are a key to country identification. A summary is presented below, together with links to good examples of each pattern.

Card Faces: Standard cards from other Counties

Standard French: King of Clubs, 1980s.	Standard Spanish cards: 4 of Coins by Fournier, 1990s.	Italian Cards: Sicilian 4 of Swords by Modiano, 2000s.	Japanese "Hana Fuda" or flower cards, 1980s.

Notes for identifying standard national patterns

Non-Standard Cards

Non-standard cards have re-designed faces, or, like pictorial cards for example, they may not be intended for playing with at all. For these cards, the main division is the type of design on the face. There are some minor differences in terms used for non-standard cards, for example Pictorial or Illustrated: 'illustrated' suggests only the hand-drawn storyboard type of pack, so Pictorial more general.

Examples of Non-Standard Cards

Card Backs

Nowadays, back designs are an integral part of the playing card and indeed they are often the main interest for many collectors. The first known backs with an original design were made for the Coronation of King William and Queen Adelaide in 1831. Other than plain backs, some earlier cards have simple colours and lines or stencilled geometry. The firm that revolutionised back design was De La Rue, taking full advantage of their new mastery of full colour lithoigraphy. Their richly decorated backs begain in 1844 and carried designs created by Owen Jones (an architect and writer on design).

The basic artistic type is generally intended to showcase the artist or simply to make the cards more attractive to play with. It was not long before card backs were used for promotional purposes too - advertising and marketing with specific sub-categories like films, drinks, cigarettes, airlines, railways, luxury brands and charities.

Two other major types are souvenir and commemorative. Souvenir cards feature a specific place or event whereas commemorative cards relate to a date or anniversary. The annual WCMPC backs are almost all in this commemorative category. This short list of categories captures most of the back types, since sub-categories can be created to reflect the enormous diversity within.

Examples of Backs

Other Classification Items

CATALOGUE TEMPLATE

The Physical Card and Pack

Curatorial Entries (examples)

Notes

In order to survey the accepted state of practice, I have consulted a number of familiar and trusted playing-card sources and catalogues: Sylvia Mann (her own collection), John Berry (WCMPC, Waddington, his own collection), Jean Hamilton (V&A), Willshire (British Museum), Yasha Beresiner (Ortiz Patino), Cary (Yale), Catherine Perry Hargrave (USPCC), Fournier (Museo Fournier), Dawson & Dawson (Hochman Encyclopedia of US cards) and Mike Goodall (Minor Makers series and Goodall reference books).

Fortunately there are far more similarities than differences between the systems used in all these sources. Several (Mann, Hochman, Goodall) use fewer categories simply because they cover playing cards of a specific country, or of a specific type (often standard). Others (Hamilton, Fournier) only categorise by Country and only include further details in the individual descriptions. In choosing categories for use here, self-explanatory choices are strongly favoured so that the scheme can be useful beyond a relatively small number of experts.

Paul Bostock, July 2015.

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