Coins (suit)

Playing card and mahjong tile suit

For other uses, see Coin (disambiguation).

Coins

Symbol from Trentine pattern

Native names|

* Chinese: 文錢
* English: Coins
* Indonesian: Koin
* Italian: Denari
* Japanese: オウル
* Malay: Batik
* Portuguese: Ouros
* Spanish: Oros
* Vietnamese: Văn

Decks|

* Money-suited playing cards
* Spanish-suited playing cards
* Italian-suited playing cards
* Portuguese-suited playing cards
* Mahjong tiles

Invented| 13th-14th century
The suit of coins from an 18th-century Venetian pack

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, where in English it may also be referred to as the suit of cash. Symbol on Italian pattern cards:  Symbol on Spanish pattern cards:  Symbol on French aluette cards:

## Characteristics

[edit]

The coin suit may have originated from pips on dice (similar to Chinese dominoes) or as a play money substitute for paper money in use for gambling. During the Tang dynasty, dice games were popular for gambling and scrolls were used as a reference material for the rules and combinations. However, scrolls were found inconvenient and eventually replaced by "Yeh-tsă" (translated "leaves," like the leaves of a book), in which the hypothesis states they became synonymous for dice and eventually replaced them.[1]

Lu Rong's (1436–1494) account of the Chinese money-suited 40-card Madiao deck has the suit of coins as Cash with ranks one to nine.[2] Korean poet Jang Hon (1759-1828) wrote that the Madiao game dates even earlier, back to the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368).[3] The ranks are in reverse order with the lower numbers ranking greater than the higher numbers. This features in many other early card games like Ganjifa, Tarot, Ombre, and Maw. By the late 16th-century, the suit of Cash added two more cards, the Half Cash and Zero Cash. The Zero Cash being the highest-ranked card of the suit due to the reverse ordering was marked red to easily identify it during games. During the 18th and 19th centuries, these two cards became suitless and took on new identities as the White Flower and Red Flower respectively. Mahjong tiles derived from money-suited decks in the middle of the 19th century and retains the coin or circles suit. The Hakka's Six Tigers [zh] deck, Vietnamese Tổ tôm and Bài chòi decks, Thailand's Pai Tai deck, and Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia's Ceki [ms] or Cherki deck all maintain the Chinese money-suit of coins. To dissociate themselves from the gambling, these cards either have abstract designs for their pips or are identified purely by text.

By the 11th century, playing cards were spreading throughout the Asian continent and later came into Egypt,[4] where it would develop into Mamluk Kanjifa. Kanjifa, in turn, would further spread to Europe sometime in the 14th century inspiring the design of the latin-suited playing cards. There are many variants of Kanjifa/Ganjifa. One of which is the Moghul Ganjifa, where two of the eight suits feature coins: "Safed" (silver coins) which ascends from 1 to 10, and "Surkh" (gold coins) which descends from 10 to 1.[5]

Spanish coin pips  Castilian  |

|

Cádiz  |
Modern Catalan  |
French Aluette  |
Piacentine  |
Romagnole  |
Sicilian  |
Neapolitan  |
Sardinian  |

In Spain, the suit of coins is known as oros and the court cards are known as the rey (king), caballo (knight or cavalier) and sota (knave or valet). The Spanish play with packs of 40 or 48 cards. There are no tens and, in the shorter pack, the nines and eights are also dropped. Thus the suit of coins ranks: R C S (9 8) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. In the French vendée where they play aluette with a special pattern of 48 Spanish-suited cards, the suit is called denier and there are the courts are the roi, cavalière (female cavalier), and valet (jack).

Italian coin pips  Bergamasche  |

|

Trevigiane  |
Triestine  |
Trentine  |
Bresciane  |
Bolognesi  |

In Italy the suit is known as denari and the corresponding court cards are the re, cavallo and fante. Either 40 or 52-card packs are used. In the shorter packs, the tens, nines and eights are removed. Card ranking is thus: R C F (10 9 8) 7 6 5 4 3 2 1.[6]

Portuguese coin pips  Sicilian tarot  |

|

Unsun karuta  |
Komatsufuda  | [[File:|70px]]

Portuguese-suited playing cards were traded to Japan in the mid-16th century which influenced the development of Karuta where the 48-card Komatsufuda and 75-card Unsun Karuta decks still maintain this suit.

The suit of coins is also one of the four suits in tarot card packs used for tarot card readings and other cartomancy.

## Gallery

[edit]

### Spanish pattern

[edit]

The gallery below shows a suit of coins from a Spanish-suited deck of 48 cards. The pack is of the Castilian pattern:

* Ace

* 2

* 3

* 4

* 5

* 6

* 7

* 8

* 9

* Sota

* Caballo

* Rey

### Italian pattern

[edit]

The gallery below shows a suit of coins from an Italian-suited deck of 52 cards. The pack is of the Bresciane pattern:

* Ace

* 2

* 3

* 4

* 5

* 6

* 7

* 8

* 9

* 10

* Fante

* Cavallo

* Re

### Mahjong pattern

[edit]

Main article: Mahjong tiles § Circles

The gallery below shows a suit of coins from a Mahjong set of 144 tiles. Also included are the red and white dragons. Note, however, that the Dragon tiles are not normally considered suited, but rather its own categorization of honor tiles.

* Red Dragon

* White Dragon

* 1

* 2

* 3

* 4

* 5

* 6

* 7

* 8

* 9

### Ceki pattern

[edit]

The gallery below shows a suit of coins from a Ceki deck of 60 cards. Also included are the red and white flowers:

* Red Flower

* White Flower

* 1

* 2

* 3

* 4

* 5

* 6

* 7

* 8

* 9

### Pai Tai pattern

[edit]

The images below shows the red and white flowers and the suit of coins from Thailand's Pai Tai deck of 60 cards:

Red Flower

White Flower

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

### Six Tigers pattern

[edit]

The image below shows a suit of coins from a Sichuan Six Tigers deck of 36 cards. The suit's name is written as (Chinese: 戋), simplified from the character (Chinese: 錢; pinyin: qián) meaning "money." The 9-ranked cards of this deck all have red markings.

9 (戋九), 8 (戋八), 7 (戋七), 6 (戋六), 5(戋五), 4 (戋四), 3 (戋三), 2 (戋二), 1 (戋一)

### Tổ tôm pattern

[edit]

The image below shows a suit of coins from a Tổ tôm deck of 120 cards. The suit's name is written as (Chinese: 文; pinyin: wén) meaning "Chinese cash (currency unit)." For this deck, the top two highest-ranked cards of each suit are marked red, which explains why the Half-Cash card has the marking. However, the Zero Cash card was promoted to the String suit, thus becoming the Zero String and no longer being part of the Coin suit.

1 (文一), 2 (文二), 3 (文三), 4 (文四), 5 (文五), 6 (文六), 7 (文七), 8 (文八), 9 (文九), Half (文半)

### Komatsufuda pattern

[edit]

The image below shows a suit of coins from a Komatsufuda deck of 48 cards:

Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Knave, Knight, King

### Unsun karuta pattern

[edit]

The image below shows a suit of coins from an Unsun karuta deck of 75 cards:

Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Knight, King, Female Knave, Sun, Un, Dragon

## Individual cards

[edit]

The sette bello in scopa

* Seven of coins. The seven of coins is the most valuable individual card in Italy's national game of scopa. Known as the sette bello ("beautiful seven"), capturing it is one of four achievements that earns a game point.[7] This card inspired the name for the Settebello (train), which in turn inspired the name for Sette Bello, the racehorse. The card also inspired the nickname to Italy men's national water polo team.

* Ace of coins. In some Italian patterns the ace of coins is represented by an eagle. Similar to the ace of spades, it often has a more ornate design due to it being used for the stamp tax.

## See also

[edit]

* Spanish-suited playing cards
* Italian playing cards
* Coins – suit used in divinatory tarot cards

## Notes and references

[edit]

1. ^ Wilkinson, William Henry (1895). "Chinese Origin of Playing Cards". American Anthropologist. VIII (1): 61–78\. doi:10.1525/aa.1895.8.1.02a00070.
2. ^ Lo, Andrew (2000). "The Late Ming Game of Ma Diao". The Playing-Card. 29 (3): 115–136.
3. ^ Yi, I-Hwa (2006). Korea's Pastimes and Customs: A Social History (1st American ed.). Hong Kong: Hangilsa Publishing Co. p. 31.
4. ^ Needham & Tsien 1985, p. 307.
5. ^ Pati, Arunima (June 11, 2020). "An Introduction to Ganjifa Cards". Indian Numismatic, Historical and Cultural Research Foundation. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
6. ^ Parlett 2008, p. xv.
7. ^ Parlett 2008, p. 410.

## Literature

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Coins (suit symbol).

* Parlett, David (2008). The Penguin book of card games. London: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-103787-5. OCLC 229463734.
* Needham, Joseph; Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin (1985), Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-08690-6

* v
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Playing cards

Standard
52-card deck|

| Playing card suits (French)|

* Spades
* Hearts
* Diamonds
* Clubs

|

Ranks|

* Ace
* Ace of spades
* Ace of hearts
* King
* Queen
* Queen of spades
* Jack
* Curse of Scotland
* Beer card

Specific decks|

* Ambraser Hofjagdspiel
* Archaeology awareness
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* Hamas most wanted
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Other packs
and decks|

* As-Nas
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Cards|

* Banner
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* Deuce
* Weli
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* Nicknames
* Stripped deck
* Talon
* Unicode

Other suits|

| German|

* Leaves

|

Swiss|

* Shields
* Roses

German and Swiss|

* Acorns
* Bells

Latin (Italian/Spanish/Portuguese)|

* Cups
* Coins
* Batons
* Swords

Chinese (Money)|

* Cash
* Strings of Cash
* Myriads of Strings
* Tens of Myriads

Manufacturers
and brands|

| Manufacturers|

* ASS Altenburger
* Cartamundi
* Copag
* Dal Negro
* Fournier
* France Cartes
* F.X. Schmid
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* J.O. Öberg & Son
* Modiano
* Nintendo
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* Oishi Tengudo
* Piatnik
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* Trefl
* U.S. Games Systems
* United States Playing Card Company

|

Brands|

* Bicycle
* Grimaud

Defunct|

* Aspioti-ELKA
* Bielefelder Spielkarten
* C.L. Wüst
* Charles Goodall
* Dondorf
* Lewis Cohen
* Waddingtons

Notable people|

* Lee Asher
* Hubert Auer
* Bryan Berg
* David Blaine
* Derren Brown
* Lewis Cohen
* Dan and Dave
* Thierry Depaulis
* S. W. Erdnase
* Lennart Green
* Richard Harding
* Johann Kaspar Hechtel
* Ricky Jay
* Sekiryo Kaneda
* René Lavand
* Ed Marlo
* Master of the Playing Cards
* John McLeod
* Anton Moser
* Samuel J. Murray
* David Parlett
* Ferdinand Piatnik
* Richard Valentine Pitchford
* Franco Pratesi
* Johann Georg Rauch
* Juan Tamariz
* Howard Thurston
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* Dai Vernon
* Fusajiro Yamauchi

Groups and
organisations|

| Skat|

* British Skat Association
* German Skat Association
* International Skat Court
* International Skat Players Association

|

* 52 Plus Joker
* Cary Collection of Playing Cards
* Fournier Museum of Playing Cards
* German Doppelkopf Association
* German Playing Card Museum
* International Playing-Card Society
* The Playing-Card
* Musée Français de la Carte à Jouer
* Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts and Culture
* Worshipful Company of Makers of Playing Cards

Card manipulation
and cardistry|

| Tricks|

* The Acme of Control
* Ambitious Card
* Blackstone's Card Trick Without Cards
* The Circus Card Trick
* The Four Burglars
* Out of This World
* Rising Card
* Spelling Bee
* Twenty-One Card Trick

|

* Bottom dealing
* Card marking
* Card sharp
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* Cardistry-Con
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* The Expert at the Card Table
* Herrmann pass
* History of cardistry
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Art and media|

| Paintings|

* The Acrobats
* The Bezique Game
* The Card Players
* The Card Players II
* Card Players in a Rich Interior
* The Card Sharp with the Ace of Diamonds
* Cardplayers in a Sunlit Room
* The Cardsharps
* Dogs Playing Poker
* Still Life with a Poem
* Violin and Playing Cards on a Table

|

Film and television|

* Card Sharks
* Playing Cards (1896)
* Play Your Cards Right

Video games|

* Balatro

Literature|

* Alice's Adventures In Wonderland (1865)

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