01-027 Swiss-suited Playing Cards

01-027
Swiss-suited Playing Cards

After talking about the French-suited, the Spanish-suited, the German-suited and the Italian-suited playing cards, today, I am moving onto the fifth and also the final standard playing card deck that are still commonly used in Europe. It is the Swiss-suited playing cards.

Swiss-suited Playing Cards

Swiss-suited playing cards are playing cards that commonly played in Switzerland. But similar to the situation of Italian-suited playing cards, only less than half of the Switzerland is using this card deck, being mainly in the parts where Swiss German is spoken. The other parts of Switzerland have adopted the French deck.

Swiss-suited playing cards are very similar to German-suited counterparts. One of the difference is the suit. In the German deck, the suits are Hearts, Bells, Acorns & Leaves. In the Swiss deck, the suits are Bells, Shields, Roses & Acorns. Both acorn and bells are suits also found in German decks, while shields and roses are unique to Switzerland.

Aces of the 4 "Swiss" suits - Bells, Shields, Roses & Acorns

The other major difference is the inclusion of the “Banner card”. In German, banner means flag. The Banner card is equivalent to a 10, being ranked between a 9 and an Unter (or Under in Swiss German).

The Banner cards

Swiss-suited playing cards are normally used for playing Jass, the national card game of Switzerland. And because of this purpose, the deck is normally stripped to 36 cards only, with 2s to 5s removed. Some printers do include more cards in the deck, though.

Pip cards of the 4 suits

Face-cards are, in Swiss German, Under, Ober and König. Their sequence depicts social stratification. The Under characters are working class, depicted as a fool or jester (Bells), a messenger or scribe (Shields), a peasant (Roses) and a soldier or page/servant (Acorns). The Ober characters are shown as clerks or overseers/officers, while the kings are crowned monarchs (three of them seated, the king of Roses is shown standing).

Court cards of the 4 suits

Swiss-suited playing cards are standard decks and there are no instructions inside the box. In fact, my deck does not even have a box! Technically, Jass can be played with a standard 52-card deck. But using an Swiss deck to play Jass can make the game “Swiss-er”. 

General Information 

Player	3 to 4
Playing Time	45 mins
Age	8+
Year Released	1796
Designer	(Public Domain)
Publisher	AGMüller
Family	Trick-taking
Score	7.0 (Board Game Geek)

Specifications 

Card size	Not specific, down to the printer.
Deck size	36 cards (normally), 48 cards (special)
# of suits	4 – Bells, Shields, Roses & Acorns
Details	For each suit, pip cards are valued from 1, then 6 to 9, then followed by the Banner card (10) and the court cards Under, Ober and König. There is no Queen. Not all cards bear index numbers.

The game Play

Where to buy?

swisshouse-shop.com 

Swiss-suited playing cards is the most difficult card deck to find. I have searched all over the internet, browsing through the websites of all those major card sellers but cannot find anyone selling this.

But to my surprise, just weeks before Christmas, I found the Holy Grail! A local Swiss merchandiser is selling this in Hongkong at just around USD $6. They allow pickup by person, so I even saved the postage charge. However, a minimum purchase of HKD 380 is required. As it was Christmas time, I just bought a bottle of Swiss wine for my wife.

The shop is run by an old Swiss guy. It is a small business. The office is hiding inside an old commercial building. He was surprised when learning that I was actually more interested in the card than the wine. 

How’s the wine?

Excellent! But I still like the cards more.

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01-026 Italian-suited Playing Cards

01-026
Italian-suited Playing Cards

After writing 3 different posts on the standard deck playing cards, one for the most common Standard 52-card deck (or more accurate, the French-suited playing cards), one for the second most common Spanish-suited playing cards, and another for the less common German-suited playing cards, today I am going to talk about the fourth standard deck of playing cards, the Italian-suited playing cards.

Italian-suited Playing Cards

As its name suggested, Italian-suited playing cards are the playing cards that played in Italy. People can imagine that when travelling in Italy, one can see people playing Italian-suited playing cards everywhere. The situation is, however, not exactly like this.

Italy is a country with a population of nearly 60 million and a land area of around 300,000 km². Technically, this is not very large. But there are altogether 16 different patterns of playing cards in Italy. And among them, only 6 are in Italian suits. For the others, 4 of them are French-suited, 5 are Spanish-suited and 1 is German-suited. There are also slight differences in design between each patterns within the same suit.

Below table shows the name of the 16 national patterns and the suit they follow.

Name of the pattern	Suit of the pattern	# cards per deck
Piemontesi	French	40
Lombarde		42
Genovesi		40
Toscane (Fiorentine)		40
Salisburghesi	German	40
Bergamasche	Italian	40
Bresciane		52
Trentine		40 or 52
Trevigiane		40 or 52
Triestine		40
Primiera Bolognese		40
Piacentine	Spanish	40
Romagnole		40
Napoletane		40
Siciliane		40
Sarde		40

Italian-suited playing cards, together with the more common Spanish-suited playing cards and the now extinct Portuguese-suited playing cards, are all belonged to the family of Latin-suited cards. They serve many similarities.

For example, most Italian decks now come in a striped deck of 40 cards, which are similar to modern day Spanish decks. The suits of Italian deck are called Spade, Coppe, Denari and Bastoni, which respectively means Swords, Cups, Coins and Batons. These are again similar to the suits of Spanish deck.

However, there are still some differences between the 2. First, in Spanish-suited cards, clubs (bastoni) are depicted as simple cudgels or tree branches, and the swords (spade) are straight longswords rather than curved scimitars. Also, some Italian printers added a pair of Jokers to the deck. The Lombarde pattern is an example.

The deck I got is in Trevigiane pattern printed by the Italian card printer Madiano. The cards are made by plastic with a distinctively long and thin shape. The deck comes with 40 cards. Patterns are very traditional. You can feel the rich history of Roman Empire when playing with these cards. I am showing the design of the deck below. 

The Aces

The other pip cards, from 2 to 7

The court cards -- the fante (Knave), cavallo (Knight), and re (King)

Italian-suited playing cards are standard decks and normally come with no instructions. Popular card games played in Italy include Scopa, Briscola, Tressette, Bestia, and Sette e mezzo. The Madino pack I got did come with 2 instruction cards, one for playing Briscola and the other for playing Scopa. Instructions are in Italian only. 

Italian instructions for playing Briscola and Scopa

Technically, all these games can be played with a standard 52-card deck. But using an Italian deck to play these games can give you a more traditional feel.

General Information 

Player	2 to 6
Playing Time	30 mins
Age	8+
Year Released	1600
Designer	(Public Domain)
Publisher	Madiano
Family	Hand Management Memory Set Collection
Score	6.5 (Board Game Geek)

Specifications 

Card size	Not specific, down to the printer.
Deck size	40, 42 or 52 cards
# of suits	4 – Spade, Coppe, Denari & Bastoni
Details	For each suit, pip cards are valued from 1 to 7 or 10, then followed by the court cards the fante (Knave), cavallo (Knight), and re (King). Sometimes 2 Jokers are included. There is no Queen. Not all cards bear index numbers. In some patterns, the court cards are single-headed.

The game Play

 

Where to buy?

Etsy.

Try to get a deck with 52 cards so that you can also use the deck to play those international card games, which would be a real good chance for showing off your knowledge on playing cards to your friends.

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02-014 Cowrie Shell

02-014
Cowrie Shell

After talking about the traditional long dice from India, the dayakattai, the next traditional die that I would like to introduce is also from that area. The name is cowrie shell.

No, I was not mistaken. I am really talking about those little seashells you can find in most part of the world, especially in the Indian Ocean. I was also surprised when I found out that people are using cowrie shells as binary dice to play games and also for divination. 

Cowrie Shells

Why using cowrie shells as dice?

History of using cowrie shells as dice can be traced back to ancient India. Such as the traditional Indian board game Pachisi is originally played with cowrie shells. A player's pieces move around the board based upon a throw of six or seven cowrie shells, with the number of shells resting with the aperture upward indicating the number of spaces to move.

The reason of using cowrie shells as dice is probably because of their wide availability. Cowries are common sea shells that can be found easily in most part of India. Their texture is also a reason why they are chosen for game playing. Cowrie shells are tough and not easy to break. A set of cowrie shells can be used for years without wearing. Besides, they are also beautiful to look upon. 

How does it work?

Cowrie shells are used as binary dice for playing traditional Indian board games, such as Pachisi or Chowka bhara. They can also be used to replace the long dice for playing Dayakattai. To play games using cowries, several shells would be thrown simultaneously. The number of shells used in each game varies. Sometimes, it is 4. But normally, 6 or 7 shells will be used. For divination, more than 50 shells will be thrown in a single time.

How to count the value also varies between games. In Pachisi, when played with 6 shells, the number of space a player may move is calculated in this way: 

Cowries facing up	Value	Earns another turn?
0	25	Yes
1	10	Yes
2	2	No
3	3	No
4	4	No
5	5	No
6	6	Yes

When played with 7 shells, it is calculated as such: 

Cowries facing up	Value	Earns another turn?
0	7	Yes
1	10	Yes
2	2	No
3	3	No
4	4	No
5	25	Yes
6	35	Yes
7	14	Yes

However, cowrie shell is not only a component of a board game. The shells themselves can be played as a standalone dice game. The traditional Indian game “40 shells”

General Information

Player	2
Playing Time	30 mins
Age	6+
Year Released	?
Designer	(Public Domain)
Publisher	OrderIQ, God?
Family	Dexterity and coordination, Children’s Game
Score	4.5 (Board Game Geek)

Specifications

Dice size	Snakehead Cowrie Shells at around 1" long
# of dice	7
Faces	2
Details	My cowrie shells are components inside a Pachisi game set. Cowrie shells can be purchased alone.

The game play

Where to buy?

Etsy

I got my set of 7 cowrie shell dice from my Pachisi game set. The set was purchased from amazon.in. My Indian friend who lives in Hongkong bought it for me as amazon.in does not take foreign payment or ship overseas. The Pachisi set was sent to his parents’ home in India. He brought the game back to me after visiting his parents a few months ago.

If you do not have a connection in India, you can buy cowrie shells from Etsy. Several sellers are selling cowrie shells at a reasonable price at around 1 USD each, with free shipment. The shells that came with my Pachisi game set are snakehead cowries in a size at around 1 inch long. I believe these are the traditional shells that are played in Indian villages.

A bit of mathematics

Before finishing this post, I would like to talk about the fairness of using cowrie shells as dice. Cowrie shell is used as a binary dice here. So, what is the difference between throwing a cowrie shell and tossing a coin?

Apparently, one of the difference is their shapes. Cowrie shells are easier to pick up than coins. Using coins to play the “40 shell game” would be a nightmare.

However, the unique shape of cowrie shell also caused them to have a curved probability distribution rather than flat probability as for a coin. A rough study shows that the probability of getting a 0 on cowrie shell die is only around 30%. Depending on the shell, that can get as low as 18.65% and as high as 39.11%. The same study also shows that the larger the shell is, the less likely it is to roll 1. And even between shells of similar size, there is significant variation.

Does that make cowrie shell dice an unfair gaming device? I don’t think so. As long as every players are agreed on playing the game with cowrie shells, then it is still a fair game.

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