History
Our current poker cards usually have 54 cards, two of which are JOKER, the two cards known as the big and small kings. In fact, these two poker cards did not exist at the beginning.
The traditional cards with spades, hearts, clubs, and diamonds as their suits were invented by the French in the 14th century, and there were only 52 cards at the beginning. Around 1850, some poker manufacturers began to add the 53rd card to the cards. At that time, this card was only used as a replacement card or advertisement. The 53rd card mainly had the following forms:
1. Blank card, that is, a card without any printing on the front. This card is mainly used as a replacement card. When a card in the card is lost, it can be replaced with this card.
2. Trademark card. This card is printed with the trademark of the poker factory. It can be used as a replacement card and also plays an advertising role.
3. Billboard, a pair of ordinary playing cards plus a product advertisement. This card may be the predecessor of today's advertising poker. This form of billboard can still be seen today.
4. Rule cards. Whist bridge was already very popular at that time. The scoring method printed on this card was very popular among players. Many foreign poker cards today also have this card.
The card at that time was not called JOKER, but called: "Extra card", which means extra card.
Since many cards have 53 cards, there are many card games played with 53 cards. Among them, a card game using 53 cards appeared in Mississippi in the United States and soon became popular throughout North America. At that time, poker produced in the United States usually had 53 cards.
The names of the 53rd card are not unified. There are various names such as "Extra card", "Wild card", "Best card", "Best Bower", "Life card", etc. The title is printed on the card. From these names, we can see that this card has the functions of replacement card, wild card and trump card.
The traditional poker cards in the UK are the same as those in France, with 52 cards. Around the 1870s, in order to expand sales in North America, some manufacturers in the UK officially produced 53-card decks.
According to research by some foreign experts, the title "JOKER" appeared between 1860 and 1880. As for where this title came from? Some people say that this is related to the No. 0 card in the main Tarot deck. This card is called "Fool" and its pattern is a homeless man. This card is also quite special in Tarot. Some people say that this title is related to a kind of card game at that time. Regardless, this designation eventually became the standard.
After 1900, most poker manufacturers produced JOKER.
The "JOKER" mark on the early JOKER card was not printed on the corner of the card. It was usually printed below the clown image. The most commonly used text was: "The Jolly Joker", which means the happy clown. , gradually simplified to "The Joker" and "Joker", and this word was printed on the corner of the card. Some cards were even simplified to the letter "J".
Not all JOKERs are printed with the word "JOKER". Another common marking method is a circled five-pointed star on the corner of the card. We still habitually call it JOKER.
The development of card games promoted the development of cards. In the early 20th century, the second JOKER appeared in poker. The now popular 54-card poker game was formed.
Poker cards produced in Asia and North America have two JOKERs, but in poker cards produced in Asia, the two JOKERs are usually divided into small and large ones, that is, a red JOKER is used to mark the king. This card is usually a colored card. Another JOKER pattern called Xiao Wang is usually the same as the big king, but it is a black and white pattern.
In the poker cards we bought back from Europe and the United States, we sometimes find that the two JOKERs are not necessarily different. This is because the popular card games in the two places are different.
After World War II, with the development of card games, more JOKER pokers appeared in Europe. According to reports, Zwicker, a card game now popular in Denmark and Germany, requires 6 JOKERs. Among the cards I have ever seen, the largest deck even has 8 JOKER.
The pattern of JOKER is not static. Although the JOKER of traditional standard poker has changed a lot, the card usually has the image of a clown. Nowadays, the JOKER in some standard cards is no longer necessarily a clown, but has various variations, such as cartoons, animals, etc., which greatly enriches the content of JOKER.
Here, I have to mention the so-called relationship between poker and astronomical calendar. Some people have studied that in poker, the big king represents the sun and the small king represents the moon. If the big and small kings are counted half a point, it means exactly 265 days in a year, and if counted a little, it means 366 days in a year. I have always disagreed with these statements. Although I dare not deny that poker is related to the astronomical calendar, judging from the development history of JOKER, some of the above statements are problematic.
Collection
Although card games with JOKER are very popular, there are still many people who like to play traditional 52-card poker, such as bridge. When playing cards, players usually take out the JOKER and put it aside. Due to the unique design of this card, some people have the idea of ??collecting it and start collecting individual JOKER cards. Many foreign JOKER collectors I know have similar experiences. One of the collectors thought he was the only person in the world who collected a single JOKER due to lack of communication for a long time. It was not until later, with the popularity of the Internet, that I realized that there were actually not a few people in the world who collected JOKER alone.
Of course, more collectors start by collecting the entire deck of playing cards. Since the other cards of the standard deck have not changed much, and the single JOKER is easier to collect and exchange, so not only the collection but also the A complete deck of poker cards, mainly suit cards, but also a collection of single JOKER cards.
Since a single JOKER is easier to exchange by mail, the mailing price is very cheap. Therefore, the exchange among collectors internationally is even more active than the entire deck of playing cards. If you open the Internet, you will find that there are more JOKER websites on the Internet, and the main function of these websites is exchange.
JOKER is mainly divided into three categories:
1. Standard JOKER. That is the standard poker JOKER (note 1). This is the most traditional JOKER and the most popular category among collectors. Some people even only collect this type of JOKER.
2. Advertising JOKER. There are many variations of JOKER on billboards, and different products have different JOKER. This type of JOKER usually prints content related to products or trademarks. Some of these cards have very unique designs and are very popular among collectors.
3. The JOKER of suit poker (Note 2). This type of JOKER has more changes, and the contents of the two JOKERs are generally different. But it would be a pity to remove the JOKER from a deck of poker cards and ruin the entire deck. Not many JOKERs are used for exchange.
Extra cards in other cards are also called Extra Joker (Extra Joker), mainly bridge score cards, poker manufacturer trademarks, etc. Some people also collect these cards, but they are not not much.
Most standard poker JOKERs have a clown pattern, but the clown pattern itself has many variations and can be divided into different types. For example, clowns holding musical instruments and playing music can be divided into one category, clowns with animals can be divided into one category, clowns holding pokers can be divided into one category, clowns holding magic wands can be divided into one category...
Individual animal patterns also occupy a certain proportion in standard poker JOKER.
For example, a poker factory in Nanjing has produced a series of animal JOKER, including rabbits, squirrels, butterflies, etc., which are very popular among foreign JOKER collectors. Common domestic animal JOKER also has various patterns such as elephant, lion, tiger, deer, camel and so on.
In recent years, JOKER with cartoon image has also become very popular. For example, JOKER with Mickey Mouse pattern appears in many types of poker.
Non-clown character patterns can be seen from time to time, such as JOKER in the image of a western cowboy holding a gun in Pirate Poker, and the two brothers holding poker cards back to back in Brothers Poker, can all be included in this category.
Standard poker JOKER can be divided into multiple types, so I won’t list them all here.
It is worth mentioning that some foreign friends are very serious about collecting. They will register each card they collect one by one, not only with the production date, manufacturer, country and other information, but also with The cards even have information about the designer. In the cards they sent, the attached note listed these detailed information, which no one in the country can do yet. After seeing this, you will understand why foreign poker books introduce picture information in such detail.
Almost no one in China specializes in collecting single JOKER. They usually collect the entire deck of poker cards and the single JOKER by the way. Now I have nearly a thousand varieties of ordinary brand JOKER, and quite a few of them came back from exchanges abroad. When counting varieties, they should be considered one if they are slightly different. If the pattern is the same but the position of the characters is different, it can be counted as one variety; the big and small king can be counted as two varieties. This is an internationally accepted calculation method.
I hope that domestic playing card factories can produce more unique JOKERs, and that more people will join the JOKER collection.
Note 1: Standard Card is what we are accustomed to call ordinary cards or idea cards.
Note 2: Suit poker is collectively called non-standard card in foreign countries and is not divided into full suit or half suit