Developing a New Major

early playing cards were chinese - and they were either actually money or they were used as money and cards interchangably - almost hte same size, the same designs

origin of gaming and cards by catherine perry hargrave (article in this section)

“so much has been written in this wrold of ours about men’s work, and so little about their play! Yet the former is not often a matter of choice, while the latter is a spontaneous thing and so, perhaps, as true a mirror of their lives and times as their more forced pursuits.” (p. 2)

historians say that all modern games are based on “ancient rites of divination of primitive people” p. 2), also games of chance (gambling)

card games spread from China by explorers and merchants to italy and the rest of europe earlier than 1370s (has a quote from a doc written by a monk in 1377 about people playing cards and that there were several games already for the cards and how it was ok as long as they didn’t gamble) - and the cards in europe looked a lot like the cards in china for a long time  - still have some of the same characteristics in size and idea of suits and differing value. they have a set of cards painted for king of france in europe in 1392 (not imported but actualy made in europe). people immediately got hooked - hparis passed a law in 1397 saying working people couldn’t play cards or dice or tennis or bowling or nin pins duirng hte working day!

cards had suits that represented societal classes - the curch represented by hearts, knights represented by spaces which were supposed to look like the tip of a spear, farmers/husbandmen by the clubs which looked like clover leaves, and the peasants represented by the diamonds or arrowheads

cards also spread by invading armies - english troops in germany who had been in Italy

dice = oldest game of chance. dominoes are just flattened out dice. these also migrated from china to europe - and some historians thing the decoration characters onteh domino cards became the characters on  tarot cards

The Unique Playing-Card Industry by Albert Morehead (article in this section)

when this article came out everybody had playing cards at home (more than had radios at home) - only 5 companies made the cards

playing cards are hard to make - specialized printing job - tin sheets of paper pasted together with plack paste so the light can’t shine thru and let other people see your hand. Then the pasted paper has to be aged to dry out so the cards won’t warp - means company has to have money because of hte start up time to get the stock aged and space to let it lay around in humidity controlled space - the author says it has to age for at least 2 years!

full packs are printed ont eh pasteboard, really sharp cutters stamp out the cards - and at the same time a “hammer-like steal block pounds down upon na anvil like steel base then the edges of the cards are pressed into a knife edge” (p. 7) - knife edge keeps the edge from fraying as you play with them and makes it possible to shuffle the deck quickly

there sued to be a federal tax on cards - taxes on cards also in england - ??is there still such a tax?

wasn’t till the 1870s that cards had the “double-head” design and the index in each corner - these things make it easy to quickly scan the card without seeing the entire face

in the 30s printers tried to make the suits more different - clubs in blue, diamonds in orange - but card palyers hated the change

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