Patagonia

This further opened up some of the area to prospectors. The Unicode standard defines 8 characters for card suits in the Miscellaneous Symbols block, from U+2660 to U+2667:

. In 1885 a mining expeditionary party under the Romanian adventurer Julius Popper landed in southern Patagonia in search of gold, which they found after travelling southwards towards the lands of Tierra del Fuego. The standard 54-card deck is also commonly known as a poker deck or—in Japan—a Trump deck, to differentiate it from "dedicated" card games such as UNO, or other dynamic card decks like Hanafuda and Kabufuda. Captain George Chaworth Musters in 1869 wandered in company with a band of Tehuelches through the whole length of the country from the strait to the Manzaneros in the north-west, and collected a great deal of information about the people and their mode of life. Among the games played with this deck are: el mus (a very popular and highly regarded vying game of Basque origin), la brisca, el tute (with many variations), el guiñote, la escoba (a trick-taking game), el julepe, el cinquillo, las siete y media, la mona, el truc (or truco), and el cuajo (a matching game from the Philippines). The expeditions of HMS Adventure (1826–1830) and HMS Beagle (1832–1836) under Philip Parker King and Robert FitzRoy respectively were of first-rate importance, the latter especially from the participation of Charles Darwin; however nothing was observed of the interior of the country except for 200 miles (320 km) of the course of the Santa Cruz. The Spanish deck is used not only in Spain, but also in other countries where Spain maintained an influence (e.g., the Philippines and Puerto Rico) 1.

Thomas Falkner, a Jesuit who resided near forty years in those parts, published his Description of Patagonia (Hereford, 1774); Francesco Viedma founded El Carmen, and Antonio advanced inland to the Andes (1782); and Basilio Villarino ascended the Rio Negro (1782). Many Spanish games involve forty-card decks, with the 8s and 9s removed. In the second half of the 18th century knowledge of Patagonia was further augmented by the voyages of the previously-mentioned John Byron (1764–1765), Samuel Wallis (1766, in the same HMS Dolphin which Byron had earlier sailed in) and Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1766). The three court or face cards in each suit are as follows: la sota ("the knave", jack or page, numbered 10 and equivalent to the Anglo-French card J), el caballo ("the horse", horseman, knight or cavalier, numbered 11 and used instead of the Anglo-French card Q; note the original Tarot deck has both a cavalier and a queen of each suit, while the Anglo-French deck dropped the former, and the Spanish deck dropped the latter), and finally el rey ("the king", numbered 12 and equivalent to the Anglo-French card K). Interest soon subsided, although awareness of and belief in the myth persisted in some quarters even up into the 20th century¹. The cards (naipes or cartas in Spanish) are all numbered, but unlike in the standard Anglo-French deck, the card numbered 10 is the first of the court cards (instead of a card depicting ten coins/cups/swords/batons); so each suit has only twelve cards. In this publication, drawn from their official logs, it became clear that the people Byron's expedition had encountered were no taller than 6 foot 6 inches, tall perhaps but by no means giants. Apart from its characteristic icon, each suit can also be identified by a pattern of interruptions in the horizontal sections of the quadrangular line that frames each card (this pattern is known as la pinta): none for oros, one for copas, two for espadas and three for bastos.

In 1773 John Hawkesworth published on behalf of the Admiralty a compendium of noted English southern-hemisphere explorers' journals, including that of James Cook and John Byron. Being a Latin-suited deck (like the Italian deck), it is organized into four palos (suits) that closely match those of the Tarot deck: oros ("golds" or coins, cf. the Tarot suit of pentacles), copas (cups), espadas (swords) and bastos (batons or clubs, cf. the Tarot suit of wands). However, the Patagonian giant frenzy was to die down substantially only a few years later, when some more sober and analytical accounts were published. However, like most other decks derived from it, the Spanish deck kept only the minor arcana (with the exception of the 10s and the queen of each suit, which were dropped), while all of the major arcana from the Tarot deck were discarded. Byron and crew had spent some time along the coast, and the publication (Voyage Round the World in His Majesty’s Ship the Dolphin) seemed to give proof positive of their existence; the publication became an overnight best-seller, thousands of extra copies were to be sold to a willing public, and other prior accounts of the region were hastily re-published (even those in which giant-like folk were not mentioned at all). The traditional Spanish deck (referred to as baraja española in Spanish) is a direct descendant of the Tarot deck. The concept and general belief persisted for a further 250 years, and was to be sensationally re-ignited in 1767 when an "official" (but anonymous) account was published of Commodore John Byron's recent voyage of global circumnavigation in HMS Dolphin. Example: "Triestine" playing cards manufactured by Modiano.

By 1611 the Patagonian god Setebos (Settaboth in Pigafetta) was familiar to the hearers of the Tempest. The cards' value is determined by identifying the face card or counting the number of suit characters. Early charts of the New World sometimes added the legend regio gigantum ("region of the giants") to the Patagonian area. Unlike Anglo-American cards, Italian cards do not have any numbers (or letters) identifying their value. This supposed race of Patagonian giants or Patagones entered into the common European perception of this little-known and distant area, to be further fuelled by subsequent reports of other expeditions and famous-name travellers like Sir Francis Drake, which seemed to confirm these accounts. The face cards are:. The main interest in the region sparked by Pigafetta's account came from his reports of their meeting with the local inhabitants, who they claimed to measure some nine to twelve feet in height —"...so tall that we reached only to his waist"—, and hence the later idea that Patagonia meant "big feet". The suits are coins (sometimes suns or sunbursts), swords, cups and clubs (sometimes batons), and each suit contains an ace (or one), numbers two through seven, and three face cards.

However, this etymology is questionable. Hundreds of different designs are in use in different parts of the country (about one per province). Although Pigafetta's account does not describe how this name came about, subsequent popular interpretations gave credence to a derivation meaning 'land of the big feet'. Italian playing cards most commonly consist of a deck of 40 cards. According to Antonio Pigafetta, one of the Magellan expedition's few survivors and its published chronicler, Magellan bestowed the name "Patagão" (or Patagoni) on the inhabitants they encountered there, and the name "Patagonia" for the region. Explanations of these games can be found at The Card Games Website. The district in the neighbourhood of Puerto Deseado, explored by John Davis about the same period, was taken possession of by Sir John Narborough in the name of King Charles II of England in 1669. Games that are played with this deck including Ulti, Snapszer (or 66), Zsírozás, Preferansz and Lórum.

The settlement which he founded at Nombre de Dios and San Felipe were neglected by the Spanish government, and the latter was in such a miserable state when Thomas Cavendish visited it in 1587 that he called it Port Famine. Interesting that he have chosen the characters of a Swiss drama as his characters for his over and under cards, however if he would have chosen Hungarian heroes or freedom fighters, his deck of cards would have never made it into distribution, due to the heavy censorship of the goverment at the time. Alonzo de Camargo (1539), Juan Ladrilleros (1557) and Hurtado de Mendoza (1558) helped to make known the western coasts, and Sir Francis Drake's voyage in 1577 down the eastern coast through the strait and northward by Chile and Peru was memorable for several reasons; but the geography of Patagonia owes more to Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1579–1580), who, devoting himself especially to the south-west region, made careful and accurate surveys. It was long believed that the card was invented in Vienna at the Card Painting Workshop of Ferdinand Piatnik, however in 1974 the very first deck was found in an English Private Collection, and it has shown the name of the inventor and creator of deck as Schneider József, a Master Card Painter at Pest, and the date of its creation as 1837. Pedro de Mendoza, on whom the country was next bestowed, lived to found Buenos Aires, but not to carry his explorations to the south. The characters of the Under and Over cards were taken from the drama, William Tell, written by Schiller in 1804, that was shown at Kolozsvár (today Cluj-Napoca) in 1827. Rodrigo de Isla, despatched inland in 1535 from San Matias by Alcazava Sotomayor (on whom western Patagonia had been conferred by the king of Spain), was the first European to traverse the great Patagonian plain, and, but for the mutiny of his men, he may have been able to strike across the Andes to reach the Chilean side. The Aces show the four seasons: the ace of hearts is spring, the ace of bells is summer, the ace of leaves is autumn and the ace of acorns is winter.

However, it is also possible that earlier navigators such as Amerigo Vespucci had reached the area (his own account of 1502 has it that he reached its latitudes), however his failure to accurately describe the main geographical features of the region such as the Rio de la Plata casts some doubt on whether he really did so. The numbering includes VII, VIII, IX, X, Under, Over, King and Ace. The region of Patagonia was to be first noted in European accounts in 1520 by the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, who on his passage along the coast named many of the more striking features -- Gulf of San Matias, Cape of 11,000 Virgins (now simply Cape Virgenes), and others. It is a 32 card deck, its four colors include hearts, bells, leaves and acorns. The indigenous peoples of the region included the Tehuelches, whose numbers and society were reduced to near extinction not long after the first contacts with Europeans. The Hungarian Card was born in the times before the 1848-49 Hungarian Freedom Fights, when revolutionary movements were awakening all over in Europe. The region seems to have been inhabited continuously since that time, by various cultures and alternating waves of migration, the details of which are as yet poorly understood. example Old German playing cards as produced by Altenburger Spielkartenfabrik.

Human habitation of the region dates back thousands of years, with some early archaeological findings in the southern part of the area dated to the 10th millennium BCE, although later dates of around the 8th millennium BCE are more securely recognised. Therefore, many "French" decks in Germany now have yellow or orange diamonds and green spades. Of the many kinds of water-fowl it is enough to mention the flamingo, the upland goose, and in the strait the remarkable steamer duck. After the reunification a compromise deck was created, with French symbols, but German colors. The carancho or carrion-hawk (Polyborus tharus) is one of the characteristic objects of a Patagonian landscape; the presence of long-tailed green parakeets (Conurus cyanolysius) as far south as the shores of the strait attracted the attention of the earlier navigators; and hummingbirds may be seen flying amidst the falling snow. In the game Skat, Eastern Germany players used the German deck, while players in western Germany mainly used the French deck. Bird-life is often wonderfully abundant. Many southern Germans and Austrians prefer decks with hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns (for hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs), as mentioned above.

The guanaco roam in herds over the country and form with the rhea (Rhea americana, and more rarely Rhea darwinii) the chief means of subsistence for the natives, who hunt them on horseback with dogs and bolas. German and Austrian suits may have different appearances. The guanaco, the puma, the zorro or Brazilian fox (Canis azarae), the zorrino or Mephitis patagonica (a kind of skunk), and the tuco-tuco or Ctenomys niagellanicus (a rodent) are the most characteristic mammals of the Patagonian plains. Tens may be either abbreviated to T or written as 10. At Punta Arenas it is 560 mm (22 inches). Shorthand notation may list the rank first "A♠" (as is typical when discussing poker) or list the suit first (as is typical in listing several cards in bridge) "♠AKQ". The prevailing winds are westerly, and the westward slope has a much heavier precipitation than the eastern; thus at Puerto Montt the mean annual precipitation is 2.46 m (97 inches), but at Bahia Blanca it is 480 mm (19 inches). When giving the full written name of a specific card, the rank is given first followed by the suit, e.g., "Ace of Spades".

At Punta Arenas, in the extreme south, the mean temperature is 6 °C (43 °F) and the average extremes 24.5 °C (76 °F) and −2 °C (28 °F). Some decks use four colors for the suits in order to make it easier to tell them apart: the most common set of colors is black (spades ♠), red (hearts ♥), blue (diamonds ♦) and green (clubs ♣). the mean annual temperature is 11 °C (52 °F) and the average extremes 25.5 °C (78 °F) and −1.5 °C (29.5 °F), whereas at Bahia Blanca near the Atlantic coast and just outside the northern confines of Patagonia the annual temperature is 15 °C (59 °F) and the range much greater. Many decks have large indices, largely for use in stud poker games, where being able to read cards from a distance is a benefit and hand sizes are small. At Puerto Montt, on the inlet behind Chiloé Island. Many casino decks and solitaire decks have four indices instead of the usual two. The east slope is warmer than the west, especially in summer, as a branch of the southern equatorial current reaches its shores, whereas the west coast is washed by a cold current. Casino blackjack decks may include markings intended for a machine to check the ranks of cards, or shifts in rank location to allow a manual check via inlaid mirror.

The climate is less severe than was supposed by early travellers. Some decks include additional design elements. It consist of the 47,992 km² of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, and several minor islands. 44mm × 66mm) for solitaire and larger ones for card tricks. Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago at the southernmost tip of Patagonia, divided between Argentina and Chile. Other sizes are also available, such as a smaller size (usually 1¾in × 2⅝in, approx. But the colonization of the western (Chilean) coast has generally failed, principally owing to the adverse climatic conditions of the Cordillera in those latitudes. Interestingly, in most casino poker games, the bridge sized card is used.

Its population in 1911 numbered about 4000. 56mm × 87mm), the latter being more suitable for games such as bridge in which a large number of cards must be held concealed in a player's hand. Owing to the produce of the cattle farms established there, the working of coal in the neighbourhood, and the export of timber from the surrounding forests, the town of Punta Arenas is in a flourishing condition. The most common sizes for playing cards are poker size (2½in × 3½in; 62mm × 88mm, or B8 size according to ISO 216) and bridge size (2¼in × 3½in, approx. Puerto Gallegos itself is an important business center, which bids fair to rival the Chilean colony of Punta Arenas, on the Straits of Magellan. They merely differentiate one court card from another and have also become distorted over time. But the present cattle region par excellence of Patagonia is the department of Rio Gallegos, the farms extending from the Atlantic to the Cordillera. Similarly the objects carried by the court cards have no significance.

In Santa Cruz bay an important trade centre has been established. The King Of Hearts did originally have a moustache but it was lost by poor copying of the original design. The Rio Santa Cruz, originally explored by Captain Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin during the Voyage of the Beagle, is an important artery of communication between the regions bordering upon the Cordillera and the Atlantic. Other oddities such as the lack of a moustache on the King of Hearts also have little significance. In the Cretaceous hills which flank the Cordillera important lignite beds and deposits of mineral oils have been discovered. However the Rouen cards were so badly copied in England that the current designs are gross distortions of the originals. The valleys of the Rio Chico throughout their whole extent, as well as those of Lake Shehuen, afford excellent grazing, and around Lakes Belgrano, Burmeister and Rio Mayer and San Martin there are spots suitable for cultivation. In these early cards the Jack of Spades, Jack of Hearts and the King of Diamonds are shown from the rear, with their heads turned back over the shoulder so that they are seen in profile.

San Julian on Puerto San Julian, where Ferdinand Magellan wintered, was the centre of a cattle farming colony, and colonists have pushed into the interior up the valley of a now extinct river which in comparatively recent times carried down to Puerto San Julian the waters of Lakes Volcan, Beigrano, Azara, Nansen, and some other lakes which now drain into the river Mayer and so into Lake San Martin. They stem from designs produced in Rouen before 1516 and by 1540-67 these Rouen designs show well-executed pictures in the court cards with the typical court costumes of the time. Lake Buenos Aires, the largest lake in Patagonia, measuring 120 kilometers (75 miles) in length, poured its waters into the Atlantic even in post-Glacial times by means of the river Deseado; and it is so depicted on the maps of the 17th and 18th centuries; and so too did Lake Pueyrredon, which, through the action of erosion, now empties itself westward, through the river Las Heras, into the Calen inlet of the Pacific, in 48°S. However the Kings, Queens and Jacks of standard Anglo/American cards today do not represent anyone. Into this inlet there flowed at the time of the conquest a voluminous river, which subsequently disappeared, but returned again to its ancient bed, owing to the river Fenix, one of its affluents, which had deviated to the west, regaining its original direction. The United States Playing Card Company suggests that in the past, the King of Hearts was Charlemange, the King of Diamonds was Julius Caesar, the King of Clubs was Alexander the Great, and the King of Spades was the Biblical King David. Puerto Deseado is the outlet for the produce of the Andean region situated between Lakes Buenos Aires and Pueyrredon. For example, the Queen of Hearts is believed by some to be a representation of Elizabeth of York - the Queen consort of King Henry VII of England.

With the exception of certain valleys at Puerto Deseado (Port Desire) and in the transverse basins which occur as far south as Puerto San Julian, and which contain several cattle farms, few spots are capable of cultivation, the pastures being poor, water insufficient and salt lagoons fairly numerous. There are theories about who the court cards represent. The territory of Santa Cruz is arid along the Atlantic coast and in the central portion between 46° and 50°S. The Queen of Spades appears to hold a scepter and is sometimes known as "the bedpost queen.". miles). The Ace of Spades, unique in its large, ornate spade, is sometimes said to be the death card, and in some games is used as a trump card. parallel, as far south as the dividing line with Chile, and between Point Dungeness and the watershed of the Cordillera, has an area of 243,943 km² (94,186 sq. The king of Diamonds is sometimes referred to as "the man with the ax" because of this.

Santa Cruz, which stretches from the 46° to the 50°S. The King of Diamonds is armed with an ax while the other three kings are armed with swords. Every year thousands of fly fishermen flock there for the hope of catching "the big one". The king of hearts is shown with a sword behind his head, leading to the nickname "suicide king". In addition it is one of the highest critically acclaimed group of rivers in the the world for fly fishing. Another such variation, "deuces, aces, one-eyed faces," is used to indicate aces, twos, the jack of hearts, the jack of spades, and the king of diamonds are wild. Colonies have also been formed in the basin of Lakes Musters and Colhué Huapi; and on the coasts near the Atlantic, along Bahia Camarones and the Gulf of San Jorge, there are extensive farms. When deciding which cards are to be made wild in some games, the phrase, "acey, deucey, one-eyed jack," is sometimes used, which means that aces, twos, and the one-eyed jacks are all wild.

The streams which form the rivers Mayo and Chalia join the tributaries of the Rio Aisen, which flows into the Pacific, watering in its course extensive and valuable districts where colonization has been initiated by Argentine settlers. The jack of spades and jack of hearts are drawn in profile, while the rest of the courts are shown in full face (the exception being the King of Diamonds), leading to the former being called the "one-eyed" jacks. At Lake Fontana there are auriferous drifts and lignite deposits which abound in fossil plants of the Cretaceous age. Though specific design elements of the court cards are rarely used in game play, a few are notable. This region contains auriferous drifts, but these, like the auriferous deposits, veins of galena and lignite in the mountains farther west which flank the Cordillera, have not been properly investigated. The packs were also sealed with a government duty wrapper. Rio Pico, an affluent of the same river, receives nearly the whole of the waters of the extensive undulating plain which lies between the Rio Tecka and the Rio Senguerr to the east of the Cordillera, while the remainder are carried away by the affluents of Rio Jehua: the Cherque, Omkel, and Appeleg. Until August 4, 1960, decks of playing cards printed and sold in the United Kingdom were liable for taxable duty and the Ace of Spades carried an indication of the name of the printer and the fact that taxation had been paid on the cards.

The principal affluent of the Palena, the Carrenleufu, carries off the waters of Lake General Paz, situated on the eastern slope of the Cordillera. The fanciful design and manufacturer's logo commonly displayed on the Ace of Spades began under the reign of James I of England, who passed a law requiring an insignia on that card as proof of payment of a tax on local manufacture of cards. Other rivers in this territory flow into the Pacific through breaches in the Cordillera, e.g. the upper affluents of the Futaleufú River, Palena and Rio Cisnes. Modern playing cards carry index labels on opposite corners (rarely, all four corners) to facilitate identifying the cards when they overlap. The chief of these colonies is that of 16 de Octubre, formed in 1886, mainly by the inhabitants of Chubut colony, in the longitudinal valley which extends to the eastern foot of the Cordillera. Two (sometimes one or four) Jokers, often distinguishable with one being more colorful than the other, are included in commercial decks but many games require one or both to be removed before play. Between the Chubut and the Senguerr there are vast stretches of fertile land, spreading over the Andean region to the foot of the Cordillera and the lateral ridges of the Pre-Cordillera, and filling the basins of some desiccated lakes, which have been occupied since 1885, and farms and colonies founded upon them. Each suit includes an ace, depicting a single symbol of its suit; a king, queen, and jack, each depicted with a symbol of its suit; and ranks two through ten, with each card depicting that many symbols (pips) of its suit.

The valley has been irrigated and cultivated, and produces the best wheat of the Argentine Republic. The primary deck of fifty-two playing cards in use today, called Anglo-American playing cards, includes thirteen ranks of each of the four French suits, spades (♠), hearts (♥), diamonds (♦) and clubs (♣), with reversible Rouennais court cards. Here is the seat of the governor of the territory, and by 1895 the inhabitants of this part of the territory, composed principally of Argentines, Welsh and Italians, numbered 2585. The context for these stories is sometimes given to suggest that the interpretation is a joke, generally being the purported explanation given by someone caught with a deck of cards in order to suggest that their intended purpose was not gambling (Urban Legends Reference Pages article). The town was founded in 1865 by a group of colonists from Wales, assisted by the Argentine government; and its prosperity has led to the foundation of other important centres in the valley, such as Trelew and Gaiman, which is connected by railway with Puerto Madryn on Bahia Nueva. Popular legend holds that the composition of a deck of cards has religious, metaphysical or astronomical significance: typical numerological elements of the explanation are that the four suits represent the four seasons, the 13 cards per suit are the 13 phases of the lunar cycle, black and red are for day and night, and finally, if the value of each card is added up - and 1 is added, which is generally explained away as being for a single joker - the result is 365, the number of days in a year. Rawson, the capital, is situated at the mouth of the river Chubut on the Atlantic (42°30'S). An example of what the old cardboard product was like is documented in Buster Keaton's silent comedy The Navigator, in which the forlorn comic tries to shuffle and play cards during a rainstorm.

Chubut territory presents the same characteristics as the Río Negro territory. In the twentieth century, a means for coating cards with plastic was invented, and has taken over the market, producing a durable product. miles), embracing the region between 42° and 46°S;. Many manufacturers use them to carry trademark designs. Chubut, covers 224,686 km² (86,751 sq. Unlike face cards, the design of jokers varies widely. In 42°S there is a third broad transverse depression, apparently the bed of another great river, now perished, which carried to the Atlantic the waters of a portion of the eastern slope of the Andes, between 41° and 42°30;S. The two jokers are often differentiated as "Big" and "Little," or more commonly, "Red" and "Black." In many card games the jokers are not used.

To the south of the Rio Negro the Patagonian plateau is intersected by the depressions of the Gualicho and Maquinchao, which in former times directed the waters of two great rivers (now disappeared) to the gulf of San Matias, the first-named depression draining the network of the Collon Cura and the second the Nahuel Huapi lake system. In contemporary decks, one of the two jokers is often more colorful or more intricately detailed than the other, though this feature is not used in most card games. In this depression are several settlements, among them Viedma, the capital of the Rio Negro territory, Pringles, General Conesa, Choele Choel and General Roca. Although the joker card often bears the image of a fool, which is one of the images of the Tarot deck, it is not believed that there is any relation. the middle part of which is followed by the railway which runs to the settlement of Neuquen at the confluence of the rivers Limay and Neuquen. Created for the Alsatian game of Euchre, it spread to Europe from America along with the spread of Poker. The Río Negro River runs along a wide transverse depression. The joker is an American innovation.

miles), extending from the Atlantic to the Cordillera of the Andes, to the north of 42°S. This innovation required abandoning some of the design elements of the earlier full-length courts. Río Negro covers 203,013 km² (78,383 sq. Before this, other players could often get a hint of what other players' hands contained by watching them reverse their cards. Lake Lacar is now a contributary of the Pacific, its outlet having been changed to the west, owing to a passage having been opened through the Cordillera. Reversible court cards meant that players would not be tempted to make upside-down court cards right side up. These regions are drained by the river Collon Cura, the principal affluent of the river Limay. This was followed by the innovation of reversible court cards.

Close to these are the famous apple orchards supposed to have been planted by the Jesuits in the 17th and 18th centuries. The use of indices changed the formal name of the lowest court card to Jack. The wide valleys occur near Rio Malleo, Lake Huechulafquen, the river Chimehuin, and Vega de Chapelco, near Lake Lacar, where are situated villages of some importance, such as Junin de los Andes and San Martin de los Andes. All Fours was considered a low-class game, so the use of the term Jack at one time was considered vulgar. In the centre of the territory, also in the neighborhood of the mining districts, are the valleys of Norquin and Las Lajas, the general camp of the Argentine army in Patagonia, with excellent timber in the forest on the Andean slope. However, from the 1600s on the Knave had often been termed the Jack, a term borrowed from the game All Fours where the Knave of trumps is termed the Jack. More to the west is the mining region, in great part unexplored, but containing deposits of gold, silver, copper and lignite. Before this time, the lowest court card in an English deck was officially termed the Knave, but its abbreviation ("Kn") was too similar to the King ("K").

Chos Malal, the capital of the territory, is situated in one of these valleys. Corner and edge indices appeared in the mid-1800s, which enabled people to hold their cards close together in a fan with one hand (instead of the two hands previously used). As the Cordillera is approached the soil becomes more fertile, and suitable districts for the rearing of cattle and other agricultural purposes exist between the regions which surround the Tromen volcano and the first ridges of the Andes. Another dicing term, trey (3), sometimes shows up in playing card games. The Neuquen river is not navigable, but as its waters are capable of being easily dammed in places, large stretches of land in its valley are utilized; but the lands on each side of its lower part are of little commercial value. The term "Ace" itself comes from a dicing term in Anglo-Norman language, which is itself derived from the Latin as (the smallest unit of coinage). On the upper plains of Neuquen territory thousands of cattle can be fed, and the forests around Lakes Tiaful and Nahuel-Huapi yield large quantities of valuable timber. This concept may have been hastened in the late 1700s by the French Revolution, where games began being played "ace high" as a symbol of lower classes rising in power above the royalty.

miles), including the triangle between the Limay River and Neuquén River, which extends southward to the northern shore of Lake Nahuel-Huapi (41°S) and northward to the Rio Colorado. However, as early as the late 1400s special significance began to be placed on the nominally lowest card, now called the Ace, so that it sometimes became the highest card and the Two, or Deuce, the lowest. Neuquén covers 94,078 km² (36,324 sq. In early games the kings were always the highest card in their suit. Population = 1,740,000 (2001 census).
Land Area = 787,000 km²
Population Density = 2.21 / km²
. Oddly, the Parisian names have become more common in modern use, even with cards of Rouennais design. With the exception of the discoveries at the inlet of Ultima Esperanza, which is in close communication with the Atlantic valley of Río Gallegos, none of these remains have been discovered in the Andean regions. Parisian tradition uses the same names, but assigns them to different suits: the kings of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs are David, Charles, Caesar, and Alexander; the queens are Pallas, Judith, Rachel, and Argine; the knaves are Ogier, La Hire, Hector, and Judas Maccabee.

The animals undoubtedly reached these localities from the east; it is not at all probable that they advanced from the north southwards across the plateau intersected at that cime by great rivers and covered by the ice-sheet. The queens are Pallas (warrior goddess; equivalent to the Greek Athena or Roman Minerva), Rachel (biblical mother of Joseph), Argine (the origin of which is obscure; it is an anagram of regina, which is Latin for queen), and Judith (from Book of Judith). One fact, however, which apparently demonstrates with greater certainty the existence in recent times of land that is now lost, is the presence of remains of pampean mammals in Pleistocene deposits in the bay of Puerto San Julian and in Santa Cruz. The knaves (or "jacks"; French "valet") are Hector (prince of Troy), La Hire (comrade-in-arms to Joan of Arc), Ogier (a knight of Charlemagne), and Judas Maccabeus (who led the Jewish rebellion against the Syrians). There are besides, in the neighborhood of the present coast, deposits of volcanic ashes, and the ocean throws up on its shores blocks of basaltic lava, which in all probability proceed from eruptions of submerged volcanoes now extinct. Rouen courts are traditionally named as follows: the kings of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs are David, Alexander, Caesar, and Charles (Charlemagne), respectively. From an examination of the pampean formation it is evident that in recent times the land of the province of Buenos Aires extended farther to the east, and that the advance of the sea, and the salt-water deposits left by it when it retired, forming some of the lowlands which occur on the littoral and in the interior of the pampas, are much more recent phenomena; and certain caps of shingle, derived from rocks of a different class from those of the neighboring hills, which are observed on the Atlantic coasts of the same province, and increase in quantity and size towards the south, seem to indicate that the caps of shingle which now cover such a great part of the Patagonian territory recently extended farther to the east, over land which has now disappeared beneath the sea, while other marine deposits along the same coasts became converted into bays during the subsequent advance of the sea. It is likely that the Rouennais cards were popular imports in England, establishing their design as standard there, though other designs became more popular in Europe (particularly in France, where the Parisian design became standard).

They are composed of caps of shingle, with great, more or less rounded boulders, sand and volcanic ashes, precisely of the same form as occurs on the Patagonian plateau. A prolific manufacturing center in the 1500s was Rouen, which originated many of the basic design elements of court cards still present in modern decks. Some of the promontories of Chiloé are still called huapi, the Araucanian equivalent for "islands"; and this may perhaps be accepted as perpetuating the recollection of the time when they actually were islands. Early court cards were elaborate full-length figures; the French in particular often gave them the names of particular heroes and heroines from history and fable. In so far as its main characteristics are concerned, Patagonia seems to be a portion of the Antarctic continent, the permanence of which dates from very recent times, as is evidenced by the apparent recent emergence of the islets around Chiloé, and by the general character of the pampean formation. Court cards have likewise undergone some changes in design and name. Several of the high peaks are still active volcanoes. However this may be, it seems certain that the earliest cards commonly used in this country were of the same kind, with respect to the marks of the suits, as those used in Italy and Spain.".

These ice-sheets, which scooped out the greater part of the longitudinal depressions, and appear to have rapidly retreated to the point where the glaciers now exist, did not, however, in their retirement fill up with their detritus the fjords of the Cordillera, for these are now occupied by deep lakes on the east, and on the west by the Pacific channels, some of which are as much as 250 fathoms (460 m) in depth, and soundings taken in them show that the fjords are as usual deeper in the vicinity of the mountains than to the west of the islands. "If cards were actually known in Italy and Spain in the latter part of the 14th century, it is not unlikely that the game was introduced into this country by some of the English soldiers who had served under Hawkwood and other free captains in the wars of Italy and Spain. In Patagonia an immense ice-sheet extended to the east of the present Atlantic coast during the first ice age, at the close of the Tertiary epoch, while, during the second glacial age in modern times, the terminal moraines have generally stopped, 30 miles (50 km) in the north and 50 miles (80 km) in the south, east of the summit of the Cordillera. This confusion of names and symbols is accounted for by Chatto thus:. Glaciers occupy the valleys of the main chain and some of the lateral ridges of the Cordillera, and descend to lakes San Martín Lake, Viedma Lake, Argentino Lake and others in the same locality, strewing them with icebergs. In England the French suits were used, and are named hearts, clubs (corresponding to trèfle, the French symbol being joined to the Italian name, bastoni), spades (corresponding to the French pique, but having the Italian name, spade=sword) and diamonds. It would not be surprising if this latter animal were still in existence, for footprints, which may be attributed to it, have been observed on the borders of the rivers Tamangoand Pista, affluents of the Las Hefas, which run through the eastern foot-hills of the Cordillera in 47°S. The trèfle, so named for its resemblance to the trefoil leaf, was probably copied from the acorn; the pique similarly from the leaf of the German suits, while its name derived from the sword of the Italian suits (alternative opinion: derived from the German word "Spaten", which is a tool like "Schüppe" and in optical sense similar to the Pique-sign; "Schüppe" is a German slang-name for Pique) [5].

With the remains of Grypotherium have been found those of the horse (Onoshippidium), which are known only from the lower pampas mud, and of the Arciotherium, which is found, although not in abundance, in even the most modern Pleistocene deposits in the pampas of Buenos Aires. These suits have generally prevailed because decks using them could be made more cheaply; the former suits were all drawings which had to be reproduced by woodcuts, but the French suits could be made by stencil. In deposits of much later date, formed when the physiognomy of the country did not differ materially from that of the present time, there have been discovered remains of pampean mammals, such as Glyptodon and Macrauchenia, and in a cave near Last Hope Inlet, a gigantic ground sloth (Grypoiherium listai), an animal which lived contemporaneously with man, and whose skin, well preserved, showed that its extermination was undoubtedly very recent. The four suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs) now used in most of the world originated in France, approximately in 1480. In the Tertiary marine formation a considerable number of cetaceans has been discovered. This probably came about in the 1780s, when occult philosophers [http://autorbis.net/tarot/biography/tarot-history-researchers/court-de-gebelin.html mistakenly associated the symbols on Tarot cards with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Other specimens of the interesting fauna of Patagonia, belonging to the Middle Tertiary, are the gigantic wingless birds, exceeding in size any hitherto known, and the singular mammal Pyrotherium, also of very large dimensions. While originally (and still in some places, notably Europe) used for the game of Tarocchi, the Tarot deck today is more often used for cartomancy and other occult practices.

The Patagonian Myolania belongs to the Upper Chalk, having been found associated with remains of Dinosauria. It is likely that the Tarot deck was invented in Italy at that time, though it is often mistakenly believed to have been imported into Europe by Gypsies (see detailed studies, also the article Tarot). This, together with the discovery of the perfect cranium of a chelonian of the genus Myolania, which may be said to be almost identical with Myolania oweni of the Pleistocene age in Queensland, forms an evident proof of the connection between the Australian and South American continents. Later Italian and Spanish cards of the 15th century used swords, batons, cups, and coins. The Upper Cretaceous and Tertiary deposits have revealed a most interesting vertebrate fauna. The cards manufactured by German printers used in the later standard the suits of hearts, bells, leaves, and acorns still present in Eastern and Southeastern German decks today used for Skat and other games, in the very early time suits took many vary variations, however. They are divided by Wilckensi into the following series (in ascending order):. Suits also varied; many makers saw no need to have a standard set of names for the suits, so early decks often had different suit names (typically 4 suits, although 5 suits also habd been common and other structures are also known).

The Tertiary deposits are greatly varied in character, and there is considerable difference of opinion concerning the succession and correlation of the beds. Throughout the 1400s, 56-card decks containing a King, Queen, Knight, and Valet were common. Porphyritic rocks occur between the schists and the quartzites. In an early surviving German pack (dated in the 1440s), Queens replace Kings in two of the suits as the highest card. First come Lower Cretaceous hills, raised by granite and dioritic rocks, undoubtedly of Tertiary origin, as in some cases these rocks have broken across the Tertiary beds, so rich in mammal remains; then follow, on the west, metamorphic schists of uncertain age; then quartzites appear, resting directly on the primitive granite and gneiss which form the axis of the Cordillera. Queens were introduced in a number of different ways. The Tertiary plateau, flat on the east, gradually rising on the west, shows Upper Cretaceous caps at its base. Europeans changed the court cards to represent European royalty and attendants, originally "king", "chevalier", and "knave" (or "servant").

The geological constitution is in accordance with the orographic physiognomy. The Europeans experimented with the structure of playing cards, particularly in the 1400s. This latter depression contains the richest and most fertile land of Patagonia. The German Brief maler or card-painter probably progressed into the wood engraver; but there is no proof that the earliest wood engravers were the card-makers. There, in contact with folded Cretaceous rocks, uplifted by the Tertiary granite, erosion, caused principally by the sudden melting and retreat of the ice, aided by tectonic changes, has scooped out a deep longitudinal depression, which generally separates the plateau from the first lofty hills, the ridges generally called the pre-Cordillera, while on the west of these there is a similar longitudinal depression all along the foot of the snowy Andean Cordillera. However, in this period professional card makers were established in Germany, so it is probable that wood engraving was employed to produce cuts for sacred subjects before it was applied to cards, and that there were hand-painted and stencilled cards before there were wood engravings of saints. In the central region volcanic eruptions, which have taken part in the formation of the plateau from the Tertiary period down to the present era, cover a large part with basaltic lava-caps; and in the western third more recent glacial deposits appear above the lava. No playing cards engraved on wood exist whose creation can be confirmed as early 1423 (the earliest-dated wood engraving generally accepted).

Besides these transverse depressions (some of them marking lines of ancient inter-oceanic communication), there are others which were occupied by more or less extensive lakes, such as the Yagagtoo, Musters, and Colhue Huapi, and others situated to the south of Puerto Deseado, in the centre of the country. Many early woodcuts were colored using a stencil, so it would seem that the art of depicting and coloring figures by means of stencil plates was well known when wood engraving was first introduced. Among the depressions by which the plateau is intersected transversely, the principal are the Gualichu, south of the Rio Negro, the Maquinchao and Valcheta (through which previously flowed the waters of lake Nahuel Huapi, which now feed the river Limay); the Senguerr, the Deseado River. If the assumption is true that the cards of that period were printed from wood blocks, the early card makers or cardpainters of Ulm, Nuremberg, and Augsburg, from about 1418 to 1450 [4], were most likely also wood engravers. Towards the Andes the shingle gives place to porphyry, granite, and basalt lavas, animal life becomes more abundant and vegetation more luxuriant, acquiring the characteristics of the flora of the western coast, and consisting principally of southern beech and conifers. It is possible that the art of wood engraving, which led to the art of printing, developed because of the demand for implements of play. In the hollows of the plains are ponds or lakes of brackish and fresh water. However, this was quite expensive, so other means were needed to mass-produce them.

The general character of the Argentine portion of Patagonia is for the most part a region of vast steppe-like plains, rising in a succession of abrupt terraces about 100 meters (330 feet) at a time, and covered with an enormous bed of shingle almost bare of vegetation. It is clear that the earliest cards were executed by hand, like those designed for Charles VI. . An early mention of a distinct series of playing cards is the entry of Charles or Charbot Poupart, treasurer of the household of Charles VI of France, in his book of accounts for 1392 or 1393, which records payment for the painting of three sets or packs of cards, which were evidently already well known. East of the Andes the Argentine portion of Patagonia includes the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz, and Tierra del Fuego, as well as the southern tip of the Buenos Aires Province. In the account-books of Johanna, duchess of Brabant, and her husband, Wenceslaus of Luxemburg, there is an entry dated May 14, 1379 as follows: "Given to Monsieur and Madame four peters, two forms, value eight and a half moutons, wherewith to buy a pack of cards". The Chilean portion embraces the southern part of the region of Los Lagos, and the regions of Aysen and Magallanes (excluding the portion of Antarctica claimed by Chile). A Paris ordinance dated 1369 does not mention cards; its 1377 update includes cards.

Patagonia is that portion of South America which, to the east of the Andes, lies south of the Neuquén and Río Colorado rivers, and, to the west of the Andes, south of (42°S). The first widely accepted references to cards are in 1371 in Spain, in 1377 in Switzerland, and, in 1380, they are referenced in many locations including Florence, Paris, and Barcelona [2] [3]. Confined to the eastern part of the region. In the late 1300s, the use of playing cards spread rapidly across Europe. Pliocene. Regardless, the Indian cards have many distinctive features: they are round, generally hand painted with intricate designs, and comprise more than four suits (often as many as twelve). Sandstones and conglomerates with marine fossils. It is not known whether these cards influenced the design of the Indian cards used for the game of Ganjifa, or whether the Indian cards may have influenced these.

Paranfl series. There is some evidence to suggest that this deck may have evolved from an earlier 48-card deck that had only two court cards per suit, and some further evidence to suggest that earlier Chinese cards brought to Europe may have travelled to Persia, which then influenced the Mameluke and other Egyptian cards of the time before their reappearance in Europe. Middle and Upper Miocene. Mayer in the Topkapi Sarayi Museum, Istanbul, in 1939 [1]; this particular complete pack was not made before 1400, but the complete deck allowed matching to a private fragment dated to the twelfth or thirteenth century. Containing remains of mammals. A complete pack of Mameluke playing cards was discovered by L.A. Santa Cruz series. The Mameluke court cards showed abstract designs not depicting persons (at least not in any surviving specimens) though they did bear the names of military officers.

Lower Miocene. Each suit contained ten "spot" cards (cards identified by the number of suit symbols or "pips" they show) and three "court" cards named malik (King), nā'ib malik (Viceroy or Deputy King), and thānī nā'ib (Second or Under-Deputy). Partly marine, partly terrestrial. In particular, the Mameluke deck contained 52 cards comprising four "suits": polo sticks, coins, swords, and cups. Patagonian Molasse. It is likely that the ancestors of modern cards arrived in Europe from the Mamelukes of Egypt in the late 1300s, by which time they had already assumed a form very close to those in use today. Eocene and Oligocene. Passages have been quoted from various works, of or relative to this period, but modern research leads to the supposition that the word rendered cards has often been mistranslated or interpolated.

Of terrestrial origin, containing remains of mammalia. Boccaccio, Chaucer and other writers of that time specifically refer to various games, but there is not a single passage in their works that can be fairly construed to refer to cards. Pyrotherium-Notostylops beds. If cards were generally known in Europe as early as 1278, it is very remarkable that Petrarch, in his dialogue that treats gaming, never once mentions them. The 38th canon of the council of Worcester (1240) is often quoted as evidence of cards having been known in England in the middle of the 13th century; but the games de rege et regina there mentioned are now thought to more likely have been chess. The time and manner of the introduction of cards into Europe are matters of dispute.

The Chinese word pái (牌) is used to describe both paper cards and gaming tiles. The designs on modern Mahjong tiles and dominoes likely evolved from those earliest playing cards. Wilkinson suggests in The Chinese origin of playing cards that the first cards may have been actual paper currency which were both the tools of gaming and the stakes being played for. These were represented by ideograms, with numerals of 2-9 in the first three suits and numerals 1-9 in the "tens of myriads".

Ancient Chinese "money cards" have four "suits": coins (or cash), strings of coins (which may have been misinterpreted as sticks from crude drawings), myriads of strings, and tens of myriads. The origin of playing cards is obscure, but it is almost certain that they began in China after the invention of paper. . In most games, the cards are assembled into a "deck" (or "pack"), and their order is randomized by a procedure called "shuffling" to provide an element of chance in the game.

One side of each card (the "front" or "face") carries markings that distinguish it from the others and determine its use under the rules of the particular game being played, while the other side (the "back") is identical for all cards, usually a plain color or abstract design. Specialty and novelty decks are commonly produced for collectors, often with political, cultural, or educational themes. They are also a popular collectible (as distinct from the cards made specifically for collectible trading card games). As a result, their use sometimes meets with disapproval from some religious groups (such as conservative Christians).

Playing cards are often used as props in magic tricks, as well as occult practices such as cartomancy, and a number of card games involve (or can be used to support) gambling. A complete set of cards is a pack or deck. A playing card is a typically hand-sized rectangular (in India, round) piece of heavy paper or thin plastic used for playing card games. Rodolfo, Gács Rezső.

Jeff Wessmiller. Dai Vernon. Juan Tamariz. John Scarne.

Darwin Ortiz. Jeff McBride. Ed Marlo. René Lavand.

Larry Jennings. Ricky Jay. Guy Hollingworth. Brother John Hamman.

Lennart Green. Erdnase. W. S.

Alex Elmsley. Daryl. Mike Caro. David Blaine.

Michael Ammar. Allan Ackerman. Aladin. Jack - a younger man standing, without a crown.

Knight - a man sitting on a horse. King - a man standing, wearing a crown.