The ace of spades (also known as the Spadille,Old Frizzle, and Death Card [1] ) is traditionally the highest and most valued card in the deck of playing cards. The actual value of the card varies from game to game. [2] [3]
The ace of spades (also known as the Spadille,Old Frizzle, and Death Card [1] ) is traditionally the highest and most valued card in the deck of playing cards. The actual value of the card varies from game to game. [2] [3]
The ornate design of the ace of spades, common in packs today, stems from the 17th century, when James I and later Queen Anne imposed laws requiring the ace of spades to bear an insignia of the printing house. Stamp duty, an idea imported to England by Charles I, was extended to playing cards in 1711 by Queen Anne and lasted until 1960. [4] [5]
Over the years, a number of methods were used to show that duty had been paid. From 1712 onwards, one of the cards in the pack, usually the ace of spades, was marked with a hand stamp. In 1765 hand stamping was replaced by the printing of the official ace of spades by the Stamp Office, incorporating the royal coat of arms. In 1828 the Duty Ace of Spades (known as "Old Frizzle") was printed to indicate a reduced duty of a shilling had been paid. [6]
One maker of cards was caught in possession of forged aces and the equipment to produce them. This was a capital offence, the prosecutor the Attorney General Spencer Perceval (later to become the prime minister assassinated in 1812) obtained the conviction of Richard Harding and he was hanged in 1805. The association of the ace of spades with death may spring from such events. [7]
The system was changed again in 1862 when official threepenny duty wrappers were introduced and although the makers were free to use whatever design they wanted, most chose to keep the ornate ace of spades that is popular today. [6] The ace of spades is thus used to show the card manufacturer's information.
Since 1882, an annual pack of cards has been produced by the Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards at the installation of each master and since 1888, a portrait of the Master has appeared at the centre of the ace of spades. [8]
The exact design of the ace card was so important, it eventually became the subject of design patents and trademarking. For example, on 5 December 1882, George G. White was granted U.S. design patent US0D0013473 [9] for his design. His ace design was adorned with male and female figures leaning onto the spade from either side.
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The ace of spades has been employed on several occasions in the theatre of war. In the First World War, the 12th (Eastern) Division of the British Army used the Ace of spades symbol as their insignia. [10] In the Second World War, the 25th Infantry Division of the Indian Army used an Ace of Spades on a green background as their insignia. [11]
In World War II, the soldiers of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the American 101st Airborne Division were marked with the spades symbol painted on the sides of their helmets. In this capacity, it was used to represent good luck, due to its fortunate connotations in card playing. Following the confusion of a large-scale combat airborne operation, all four card-suits were used for ease of identification of regiments within the airborne division. Battalions within the regiments were denoted with tic marks or dots, struck from top clockwise: headquarters at the twelve o'clock position, 1st Battalion at the three o'clock, etc.
During the Vietnam War, the ace of spades was used as a tool of psychological warfare as it was common practice by US soldiers to leave the ace card on the bodies of killed Vietnamese. [12] They thought that the card's connections to French colonial rule of Vietnam and putative symbolism in Vietnamese tradition to mean death and ill-fortune would frighten and demoralise Viet Cong soldiers. [13] [14] [15] This custom was said to be so common that the United States Playing Card Company was asked by Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 35th Infantry Regiment to supply crates of that single card in bulk. The plain white tuck cases were marked "Bicycle Secret Weapon", and the cards were deliberately scattered in villages and in the jungle during raids. [16] [17] The ace of spades, while not a symbol of superstitious fear to the Viet Cong forces, did help the morale of American soldiers. Some U.S. soldiers and Marines were reportedly sticking this card in their helmet band as a sort of anti-peace sign. [18]
The ace of spades is a symbol for people who are asexual and aromantic. People who are asexual, but not aromantic, use the ace of hearts as a symbol. [19]
Various idioms involving the ace of spades include "black as the ace of spades," which may refer either to completely black; totally without light or colour, colour, race, (lack of) morality, or (lack of) cleanliness in a person. [20] [lower-alpha 1] [21]
The French expression fagoté comme l'as de pique translates to "(badly) dressed like the ace of spades." [22]
The ace of spades is encoded into Unicode with the code point U+1F0A1, as part of the playing cards Unicode block. [23]
| Preview | 🂡 | |
|---|---|---|
| Unicode name | PLAYING CARD ACE OF SPADES | |
| Encodings | decimal | hex |
| Unicode | 127137 | U+1F0A1 |
| UTF-8 | 240 159 130 161 | F0 9F 82 A1 |
| UTF-16 | 55356 56481 | D83C DCA1 |
| Numeric character reference | 🂡 | 🂡 |
An ace is a playing card, die or domino with a single pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit symbol located in the middle of the card, sometimes large and decorated, especially in the case of the ace of spades. This embellishment on the ace of spades started when King James VI of Scotland and I of England required an insignia of the printing house to be printed on the ace of spades. This insignia was necessary for identifying the printing house and stamping it as having paid the new stamp tax. Although this requirement was abolished in 1960, the tradition has been kept by many card makers. In other countries the stamp and embellishments are usually found on ace cards; clubs in France, diamonds in Russia, and hearts in Genoa because they have the most blank space.
Pips are small but easily countable items, such as the dots on dominoes and dice, or the symbols on a playing card that denote its suit and value.
In playing cards, a suit is one of the categories into which the cards of a deck are divided. Most often, each card bears one of several pips (symbols) showing to which suit it belongs; the suit may alternatively or additionally be indicated by the color printed on the card. The rank for each card is determined by the number of pips on it, except on face cards. Ranking indicates which cards within a suit are better, higher or more valuable than others, whereas there is no order between the suits unless defined in the rules of a specific card game. In most decks, there is exactly one card of any given rank in any given suit. A deck may include special cards that belong to no suit, often called jokers.
Clubs is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. The symbol was derived from that of the suit of Acorns in a German deck when French suits were invented in around 1480.
A sapper, also called a combat engineer, is a combatant or soldier who performs a variety of military engineering duties, such as breaching fortifications, demolitions, bridge-building, laying or clearing minefields, preparing field defenses, and road and airfield construction and repair.
Bicycle Playing Cards is a brand of playing cards. Since 1885, the Bicycle brand has been manufactured by the United States Printing Company, which, in 1954, became the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC), now based in Erlanger, Kentucky. "Bicycle" is a trademark of that company.
A Jack or Knave, in some games referred to as a Bower, in Tarot card games as a Valet, is a playing card which, in traditional French and English decks, pictures a man in the traditional or historic aristocratic or courtier dress, generally associated with Europe of the 16th or 17th century. The usual rank of a jack is between the ten and the queen. The Jack corresponds to the Unter in German and Swiss-suited playing cards.
The makeup of poker's dead man's hand has varied through the years. Currently, it is described as a two-pair poker hand consisting of the black aces and black eights. The pair of aces and eights, along with an unknown hole card, were reportedly held by Old West folk hero, lawman, and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok when he was murdered while playing a game. No contemporaneous source, however, records the exact cards he held when killed. Author Frank Wilstach's 1926 book, Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers, led to the popular modern held conception of the poker hand's contents.
The standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards is the most common pack of playing cards used today. The main feature of most playing card decks that empower their use in diverse games and other activities is their double-sided design, where one side, usually bearing a colourful or complex pattern, is exactly identical on all playing cards, thus ensuring the anonymity and fungibility of the cards when their value is to be kept secret, and a second side, that, when apparent, is unique to every individual card in a deck, usually bearing a suit as well as a alphanumerical value, which may be used to distinguish the card in game mechanics. In English-speaking countries it is the only traditional pack used for playing cards; in many countries of the world, however, it is used alongside other traditional, often older, standard packs with different suit systems such as those with German-, Italian-, Spanish- or Swiss suits. The most common pattern of French-suited cards worldwide and the only one commonly available in English-speaking countries is the English pattern pack. The second most common is the Belgian-Genoese pattern, designed in France, but whose use spread to Spain, Italy, the Ottoman Empire, the Balkans and much of North Africa and the Middle East. In addition to those, there are other major international and regional patterns including standard 52-card packs, for example, in Italy that use Italian-suited cards. In other regions, such as Spain and Switzerland, the traditional standard pack comprises 36, 40 or 48 cards.
A revenue stamp, tax stamp, duty stamp or fiscal stamp is a (usually) adhesive label used to designate collected taxes or fees on documents, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, drugs and medicines, playing cards, hunting licenses, firearm registration, and many other things. Typically, businesses purchase the stamps from the government, and attach them to taxed items as part of putting the items on sale, or in the case of documents, as part of filling out the form.
Spades is one of the four playing card suits in the standard French-suited playing cards. It has the same shape as the leaf symbol in German-suited playing cards but its appearance is more akin to that of an upside down black heart with a stalk at its base. It symbolises the pike or halberd, two medieval weapons, but is actually an adaptation of the German suit symbol of Leaves created when French suits were invented around 1480.
Over the course of its history, the LGBTQ community has adopted certain symbols for self-identification to demonstrate unity, pride, shared values, and allegiance to one another. These symbols communicate ideas, concepts, and identity both within their communities and to mainstream culture. The two symbols most recognized internationally are the pink triangle and the rainbow flag.
Ace of Coins is a card used in Latin-suited playing cards, which include tarot decks. Tarot card readers call the coins suit "Pentacles," and include this card in their "Minor Arcana."
The Bourgeois Tarot deck is a mid-19th century pattern of tarot cards of German origin that is used for playing card games in western Europe and Canada. It is not designed for divinatory purposes. This deck is most commonly found in France, Belgian Wallonia, Swiss Romandy and the Canadian province of Québec for playing French Tarot; in southwest Germany for playing Cego and Dreierles; and in Denmark for Danish Tarok.
German solo or just solo is a German 8-card plain-trick game for 4 individual players using a 32-card, German- or French-suited skat pack. It is essentially a simplification of quadrille, itself a 4-player adaptation of ombre. As in quadrille, players bid for the privilege of declaring trumps and deciding whether to play alone or with a partner. Along with ombre, Tarock and Schafkopf, German solo influenced the development of skat. Parlett calls it a "neat little descendant of Quadrille" and "a pleasant introduction" to the ombre family of games.
The ace of hearts (A♥) is a card in a deck of playing cards: the ace in the suit of hearts (♥). There is one ace of hearts in a standard deck of 52 cards.
French-suited playing cards or French-suited cards are cards that use the French suits of trèfles, carreaux, cœurs, and piques. Each suit contains three or four face/court cards. In a standard 52-card deck these are the valet, the dame, and the roi (king). In addition, in Tarot packs, there is a cavalier (knight) ranking between the queen and the jack. Aside from these aspects, decks can include a wide variety of regional and national patterns, which often have different deck sizes. In comparison to Spanish, Italian, German, and Swiss playing cards, French cards are the most widespread due to the geopolitical, commercial, and cultural influence of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. Other reasons for their popularity were the simplicity of the suit insignia, which simplifies mass production, and the popularity of whist and contract bridge. The English pattern of French-suited cards is so widespread that it is also known as the International or Anglo-American pattern.
Richard Harding was a British forger. He was capitally indicted and convicted of the forgery of brass duty legal stamps placed on the Ace of Spades and the selling and uttering of playing cards with the same, while knowing such duty stamp to be false. He was hanged at the Old Bailey, London, England in 1805.
Hearts is one of the four playing card suits in a deck of French-suited and German-suited playing cards. However, the symbol is slightly different: is used in a French deck while is used in a German deck.
The suit of coins is one of the four card suits used in Latin-suited playing cards alongside swords, cups and batons. These suits are used in Spanish, Italian and some tarot card packs. This suit has maintained its original identity from Chinese money-suited cards. Symbol on Italian pattern cards: Symbol on Spanish pattern cards: Symbol on French aluette cards:
Originally published in the October 2007 issue of Vietnam Magazine
