Standard Six Suit Deck--Blue Back

!!! New Back Design: Black with Blue Edge !!!

This deck contains A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 2 in each of six suits: bullets, clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades, and crosses. It also contains three wild cards: a Joker, a Wizard and an Old Maid.

Variations in Common Card Games to accommodate six suits.

Poker

The mechanics of the game remain the same but because there are more suits it is harder to get cards of the same suit and easier to get cards of the same rank. The poker hands rank in the following order (high to low): royal flush, straight flush, five of a kind, flush, four of a kind, full house, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair and no pair.

Rummy

The basic mechanics of the game remain the same but because there are more cards more people can play at a time. Sets should consist of at least four cards of the same rank. Runs are at least three cards of the same suit in order. Deal ten cards for two or three players; seven cards for four, five, or six players; six cards for seven, eight, nine or ten players. The Joker, the Wizard, and the Old Maid are treated as wild cards with no distinction between them.

Design notes and credits.

The card designs, for all but the wild cards, are based on the International Playing Cards deck marketed by Hiram Jones in 1895. I changed the color of his two new suits to blue, and changed the symbol of the Cross suit from a cross cleché to a simple saltire and I simplified the drawings for the face cards.

In Hiram Jones’s day a typical card deck had one extra card: the Joker. Today it is much more common to have two or even three wild cards. The drawing of the Joker is inspired by Excuse found in French tarot decks. The drawing of the Wizard is inspired by drawings of Merlin, and the drawing of the Old Maid is based on drawings from early dedicated Old Maid decks.