Playing Cards Around The World

[ll_billym]

In the UK / US the 52 card deck with Spades, Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs is the most popular deck in the country and is used to play thousands of different games.

Is this the same for other countries or do they have their own national decks?  What are the differences?

[flashpig]

The standard deck of cards is also referred to as French suited cards, and there are other types of decks. The Spanish deck, for example, has 40 cards: Four suits (Clubs, Swords, Coins, Cups) with 10 cards each (1-7, 10-12). One through seven are just numbered cards, eight and nine are skipped altogether, and the ten through twelve are respectively the Jack, Knight, and King.

from http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=playing%20cards

[Marsh]

Two informative sites on national patterns of playing cards are:-

http://i-p-c-s.org/history.html  and

http://www.wopc.co.uk