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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