• Domino card
• "Four-colour" chess card
• Numeral character card
• Money-suited card
Chinese money-suited cards. Unknown, China. Regular deck, Chinese money suited, 159 cards. Size: 30mm x 120mm.
Deck make-up:
Cash, strings, myriads: 1-9 (5 of each).
Extras: jokers x4 (6 of each).
Playing cards were most likely invented in China during the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279). They were certainly in existence by the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271-1368) as a 1320 legal compilation refers to a 1294 case in which two gamblers were arrested in Shandong along with nine of their paper playing cards and the woodblocks used to print them.
Some of the types of traditional Chinese playing cards that evolved since those times are still made even today. Size-wise, they are, almost exclusively, longer and much thinner in size than the standard "poker" playing cards of the West. Traditionally the Chinese cards have been made of card or thickish paper but these days are typically made of thin plastic. Below, you can see the main categories of the historical Chinese cards still in production. On the left are "domino cards", which feature different permutations of domino pips at the end of each card. Then there are "chess cards", which feature characters corresponding to the names of the pieces in Chinese chess (xiangqi ). Next are "character cards", a large family of patterns which usually features numerals or individual characters from sagacious Chinese sayings. Finally, are the "money-suited cards" which interest us here. These are so called as the suits of these decks are based on different denominations of Chinese money.
An early reference to a money-suited pack comes from Lu Rong (1436–1494) who described a four-suited deck consisting of suits called: "cash" (or "coins"), "strings" (of coins), "myriads" (meaning ten-thousand of something), and "tens" (of myriads). The first three suits each had nine cards; whereas the tens suit ( 十 ) comprised eleven cards with values from 20 to 90 myriads, then a hundred myriads, a thousand myriads, and finally a myriad myriads. This deck was mainly used for playing trick-taking games such as madiao.
These money-suited cards tend to generate the most interest outside of China as they are – via various travels and metamorphoses – the ancestors of:
Back in China, as time passed, draw-and-discard games became more popular and the basic deck was often multiplied, with cards having anywhere from two to five duplicates, sometimes the number varying by rank.
By the late 16th-century, the suit of cash had added two more cards: "half cash" and "zero cash". Since the cash suit is usually ranked in reverse order (i.e. lower rank beats higher), these two new cards were super-powered.
From at least the 17th-century, games played with "stripped" (i.e. reduced) decks became more popular. Stripping was done by removing the suit of tens save for the thousand myriads. Subsequently, during the 18th and 19th centuries, the thousand myriads, half cash and zero cash then took on new identities as the suitless "Old Thousand", "White Flower" and "Red Flower" respectively ("flower" being a Chinese designation for any sort of wild card or joker). It seems the myriad myriads card was also retained initially but had disappeared by the late 19th century.
It was noted that, prior to 1783, three-suited decks had become ten times more popular than four-suited decks, a disparity which has since significantly increased. Only one four-suited deck still exists within China and that is used by the Hakka Chinese to play Luk Fu or Six Tigers, a multi-trick game.
Mahjong was derived from these types of draw-and-discard card games during the middle of the 19th century, and uses a money-suited set of tiles or cards (three suits with four copies of each rank) as its base, along with extra bespoke subjects.
Modern Chinese money-suited decks follow a far more flexible pattern than their Western 52-card counterparts, and many variations (often regional) still exist. However, modern packs almost invariably include the set of cards given below as a base, with each card having at least four copies.
Cards considered special in gameplay (often the lowest and highest rank in each suit) are commonly in colour (compared to the black and white of the other ranks) or have faux red stamps on them.
Where the rank is not given explicity on a card, players are presumably expected to count the pips (easier said than done with some designs!) Where ranks are shown on the cards, two different Chinese numeral systems are in use: everyday numerals (which are the set the Chinese employ for non-legal and casual purposes and have a simplified set of strokes) and official numerals (which are used on certificates, bonds and so forth). Both sets are given in the table below.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 100 | 1000 | 10,000 a myriad |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Everyday | 一 | 二 | 三 | 四 | 五 | 六 | 七 | 八 | 九 | 十 | 百 | 千 | 万 |
| Official | 壹 | Trad.:貳 Simp.:贰 |
Trad.:參 Simp.:参 |
肆 | 伍 | Trad.:陸 Simp.:陆 |
柒 | 捌 | 玖 | 拾 | 佰 | 仟 | 萬 |
Furthermore, to add more confusion, a lot of Chinese characters (not just numerals) can be given in two differing forms: traditional Chinese or the simplified Chinese introduced by the People's Republic in 1956. Both can appear on this type of cards. Remember also that Chinese writing, especially in this sort of context, can run either left-to-right or right-to-left.
When playing, the Chinese often fan their cards vertically so only the strange geometric shapes on the end of each card remain showing. Even though these markings are non-standard and differ between patterns, experienced players can use these alone to identify the cards they hold – an astonishing feat!
This is the lowest suit and represents numbers of coins. It consists of nine cards with ranks 1 through 9 coins. The rank, if shown, is usually in everyday Chinese characters (see the table above).
As usual with Chinese, there are several characters with much the same meaning all used to indicate the suit (assuming it is given) – the characters used on the examples on this site are 并 or 饼. Both of these mean "cake" as in "cake of silver". The pip symbol is usually a disk or similar, but the lowest and highest ranks sometimes use far more abstract designs than the rest of the suit.
This is the next suit up and represents a number of the above coins (usually 100 in real life) threaded onto a string for convenience. Again, it consists of nine cards with ranks 1 through 9. The rank (if shown) is usually given in everyday Chinese characters or even our familiar Hindu-Arabic numerals.
The suit character when shown can be, amongst others, 条 or 條 (meaning "long narrow thing" or "strip"). The pip symbol is often a string of coins (though sometimes very stylised) but in some patterns this has metamorphosed across the years into a fish, and sometimes a mixture of strings and fish are used across the suit (with fish tending to be favoured on the lowest and highest ranks). At times, strange bird-like aspects creep into the pictures.
A "myriad" is a Chinese term specifically meaning 10,000 of something (opinions differ as to whether, in this context, it means 10,000 of the coins or 10,000 of the strings of coins, but this hardly matters when playing games). Again, the suit consists of nine cards with ranks 1 through 9.
This time, though, there are no pips. Each card usually (though not always) features a drawing of a more-or-less random character from the classic Ming-dynasty Chinese novel The Water Margin, which is why money-suited cards are also commonly called "Water Margin cards" (the character's actual name is often given next to the drawing). Some designs heavily abstract the faces, and decks exist where the images are so distorted that they are hardly recognisable as faces (see rightmost card below). As there are no pips to count, the cards of this suit always carry an everyday Chinese numeral showing the rank, as well as either 万 or 萬 (representing the Chinese for myriad) indicating the suit.
Most decks will carry at least three jokers or flower cards, the above-mentioned Old Thousand, White Flower and Red Flower. These identities may not always be stated explicitly on the cards but there should always be enough extra cards included (i.e. at least three) that can be appointed to these roles as necessary.
The Old Thousand can normally be identified readily as it usually carries the characters for its name ( 老千 or at least the thousand part: 千 ) or those for its original designation, thousand myriads: 万千
If you're lucky, the White Flower will carry the Chinese for its name: 白花 This card often carries an abstract design – perhaps involving a flower – rather than an image of a person (this is not always the case though).
If you're very lucky, the Red Flower will carry the Chinese for its name: 红花 It often has a picture of a man in black boots.
Some less-common patterns, predominantly those from the south-west of China, have different names for these same three cards: 大红 ("Big Red"), 小红 ("Little Red") and 八束 ("Eight Bundles").
In addition to these three pretty-much standard flower cards, some patterns carry still extra flower cards. A commonish fourth joker is sometimes dubbed "Gold Flower". It is usually about gold, wealth or luck, and is really meant as a good-fortune metaphor to round off the deck (it has been theorised that the Gold Flower represents the last vestiges of the defunct myriad myriads card – the highest card in the original four-suited deck). In addition, decks from the east of China often carry extra cards representing blessings (happiness, longevity etc.) or virtues (humanity, benevolence etc.) Decks from the north can carry subjects from the classic tale The Legend of the White Snake.
These cards were packaged in a generic box, so I have little idea of their regionality or manufacturer, though there is evidence the pattern comes from Xinjiang province in the west of China. One place calls it a dào lǎo deck which seems to be echoed by a unique flower card it carries (see last section, below).
The cards are printed with four solid/spot colours (i.e. not half-toned) on a light-grey plastic.
Click on any card to explore the design.
(Comments or corrections, please e-mail: Click to see e-mail address.)
Card image size, below:
Since there are no values on the cards in this suit, identification is only by counting the pips. The 1 has a more abstract design.
Notice an almost bird-like aspect creeping into some of the cards in this suit. The 9 carries an explicit declaration of the card's rank, in red.
As is common, each card in this suit carries a picture of a character from The Water Margin, though they are not explicitly identified (as they are on some patterns). Having said this, elements to the pictures make some guessable. The axe guy on the 5 is probably Li Kui ( 李逵 ), who went around hacking up people with axes. The 8 is likely Zhu Tong ( 朱仝 / 周通 ) – the little boy is the son of a local prefect who takes a liking to Zhu Tong.
The symbol for myriads is on the left of each heading ( 万 ) with the value, in everyday Chinese number symbols, on the right. I don't know why some of the blocks containing the suit and ranks are black and some are white.
There are four joker/flower cards in this deck, one more than the default. The leftmost one is Old Thousand, and the third is White Flower. The second appears to bear 金玉 – this would seem to mean either "gold and jade" (a reference to wealth) or else be a reference to the character Li Jinyu from The Water Margin.
The extra joker carries 道老 . This is a reference to "taoist priest" – a wise elderly man. Given the gold background behind the title, this presumably is a Gold Flower card conferring wisdom and old age.
Chinese Money-Suited Cards 1 (Jīn Hóu, Tiānjīn, China)
Chinese Money-Suited Cards 2 (Mín Lè, Shùyáng, China)
Chinese Money-Suited Cards 3 (unknown, China)
Chinese Money-Suited Cards 4 (Taizhou Luqiao Xingqin Plastic Factory, Shenyang, China)
Chinese Money-Suited Cards 5 (Jinxin, Jinxiang, Zhejiang Province, China)
Chinese Money-Suited Cards 6 (Guangzhou Qimiao, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China)
Chinese Money-Suited Cards 7 (unknown, China)
Luk Fu / Six Tigers 1 (Hong Shi Factory, China)
Luk Fu / Six Tigers 2 (Jinzhong Playing Cards, Chongzhou City, Sichuan, China)
Mahjong (Da Zong, Yiwushi Chuiyun Wanjuchang, Zhejiang, China)
Chinese Domino Cards (Jinzhong Tianzi brand / Shu Brand Boutique / Chengdu Famous Trademark, China)
Chinese Numeral Cards (Laughing About ( 笑谈中 ), Zhejiang, China)
Chinese Chess Cards (All American Group, Guangdong Quanmei Poker Co., China)
