10 Interesting Facts About a Standard Deck of Playing Cards

10 Interesting Facts About a StandardDeck of Playing Cards

Check out The Mental Playground for more: http://www.mental-playground.com

1. The Largest Producer of Playing Cards
The United States Playing Card Company (USPC), located in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the world’s largest producer of playing cards. The company was founded in 1867. USPC vends over 100,000,000 decks of playing cards annually. The company produces Aristocrat, Aviator, Bee, Bicycle and Hoyle brand cards. It also produces playing cards for popular brands and names like Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse, Harry potter and Mr. Potato Head.

2. When Were Playing Cards First Used?
Another interesting fact about a deck of playing cards is that the first recorded account of their use was in the Orient, sometime in the 12th century. The Chinese replaced their bone or ivory playing cards (tiles) they used to play the game of Dominos with, with a heavy paper kind of playing cards.

3. Where Did the Four Suits Originate From?
The four suits in a standard deck of playing cards is thought to have originated in the Middle East. The suits started out as being coins, cups, swords and sticks. These suits evolved into today’s playing card suits with the coins now being diamonds; the cups, which stood for “love”, turning into hearts; the spades replaced the swords, and the sticks are now clubs.

4. How French Playing Cards Got Their Face Card Designs

An interesting fact about a deck of standard playing cards is that it originally was the French version. The face cards in the deck were named after, and designed to look like, actual historical figures. The King of Hearts was Charlemagne; the King of Diamonds was Julius Caesar; the King of Clubs was Alexander the Great, and the King of Spades was King David from the Holy Bible.

5. Why Is the Ace of Spades Different Looking?
Playing cards was a popular form of entertainment in France. The rulers saw a way to make more money by taxing the Ace of Spades, and only that card in the deck. Aces were given the most open space so they could be stamped showing that the tax had been paid.

Today, card manufacturers use the space to print their company information in, including trademark information.

6. They’re Not Playing With a Full Deck!
Have you ever heard this phrase, or said it about someone yourself? Nowadays, this phrase is generally used to describe a person who isn’t completely in their right mind.

An interesting fact about a deck of playing cards is, it actually generated this phrase. To avoid paying the tax that was tacked onto the Ace of Spades, people wouldn’t buy that card when they bought a deck of playing cards. So, they were playing traditional games that required using 52 cards with only 51. It was said they weren’t “playing with a full deck” or they were foolish for doing so.

7. What Do the Patterns on Card Backs Mean?
An interesting fact about a deck of playing cards is that usually playing cards have differentiable patterns on the backs of the cards. Unless the cards have advertising or pictures on the backs, that is. Each card manufacturer has their own unique pattern they place on their cards. The normal colors you’ll see these patterns printed in are red and blue.

8. Building Houses With Playing Cards Is Also a Favorite Pastime
Besides playing card games, building houses out of playing cards or “Cardstacking” is a favorite pastime for many people. A man named Bryan Berg has turned this pastime into a career. He earned the Guinness World Record for the “world’s tallest card tower” in 1992. Since then, Berg has won even more honors for building higher towers. His highest to date measured 25 feet, 3.5 inches. Bryan Berg used 2,400 decks of playing cards to build this huge tower with.

9. Playing Cards Assisted American Prisoners Escape During the War

An interesting fact about playing cards is that specially-constructed decks were sent to American soldiers who were being held in German camps during World War II. The United States Playing Card Company collaborated with the government in the production of these cards. What made these cards so unique was, once they became wet, they peeled apart. Inside, the prisoners found parts of maps that would lead them to freedom.

10. The Ace of Spades Assisted the U.S. Troops in Vietnam Too
In 1966, when the Vietnam War was raging on, two United States lieutenants contacted the United States Playing Card Company. The two officers wanted decks of playing cards that consisted of nothing more than Aces of Spades. The aces were used as part of a psychological warfare against the Viet Cong. You see, when the French used cards to foretell the future, the Aces of Spades forewarned of death. The Viet Cong were superstitious, and just seeing this card made them fearful. Thousands of Aces of Spades were dispersed throughout the jungles to make the enemy leave in fear.

Check out The Mental Playground for more: http://www.mental-playground.com

Does this sound like you?

Read through this, and think to yourself, “does this sound like me?” When you are finished, write back (aj.73@hotmail.co.uk), and tell me if it did. Thanks for your time.

 

You are a person prone to bouts of self-examination. This is in sharp contrast to a striking ability you have developed to appear very socially engaged, even the life and soul of the parrt; but in a way that only convinces others. You are all too aware of it being a facade.

This means that you will often be at a gathering and find yourself playing a part. While on the one hand you’ll be talkative and funny, you’ll be detaching yourself to the point where you will find yourself watching everything going on around you and feeling utterly unable to engage. You’ll play conversations back to yourself in your head and wonder what that person really meant when he said such-and-such – conversations that other people wouldn’t give a second thought to.

 How have you learned to deal with this conflict? Through exercising control. You like to show a calm, self-assured fluid kind of stability (but because this is self-consciously created, it will create bouts of frustrated silliness and a delight in extremes, or at least a delight in being seen to be extreme). You most easily recognize this control in how you are with people around you. You have learned to protect yourself by keeping people at bay. Because in the past you have learned to be disappointed by people, you instinctively keep people at arms’ length, until you decide they are allowed over that magic line into your group of close friends. However, once across that line, the problem is that an emotional dependency kicks in which leaves you feeling very hurt or rejected if it appears that they have betrayed that status.

Because you are prone to self-examination, you will be aware of these traits. However, you are unusually able to examine even that self-examination, which means that you have become concerned about what the real you is. You have become all too aware of facades, of sides of yourself which you present to the world, and you wonder if you have lost touch with the real and spontaneous you.

You are very creative, and have tried different avenues to utilize that ability. It may not be that you specifically, say, paint; it may be that your creativity shows itself in more subtle ways, but you will certainly find yourself having vivid and well-formed ideas which others will find hard to grasp. You set high standards for yourself, though, and in many ways are a bit of a perfectionist. The problem is, though, that it means you often don’t get stuff done, because you are frustrated by the idea of mediocrity and are wearied by the idea of starting something afresh. However, once your brain is engaged you’ll find yourself sailing. Very much this will likely lead to you having considered writing a novel or some such, but a fear that you won’t be able to achieve quite what you want stops you from getting on with it. But you have a real vision for things, which others fall short of. Particularly in your academic/college situation, you are currently fighting against restraints upon your desire to express yourself freely.

Your relationship with your parents is under some strain. You wish to remain fond of them but recent issues are causing frustration – from your side far more than theirs. In fact they seem unaware of your thoughts on the matter. Partly this is because there are ways in which you have been made to feel isolated from certain groups in the past – something of an outsider. Now what is happening is that you are taking that outsider role and defending it to the point of consciously avoiding being part of a group. This will serve you well in your creative and career pursuits. You have an enormous cynicism towards those who prefer to be part of a group or who exhibit any cliquey behaviour, and you always feel a pang of disappointment when you see your ‘close’ friends seeming to follow that route. Deep down it feels like rejection.

However, for all that introspection, you have developed a sensational, dry sense of humour that makes connections quickly and wittily and will leave you making jokes that go right over the heads of others. You delight in it so much that you’ll often rehearse jokes or amusing voices to yourself in order to ’spontaneously’ impress others with them. But this is a healthy desire to impress, and although you hate catching yourself at it, it’s nothing to be so worried about.

There’s also an odd feeling that you should have been born in a different century. You might be able to make more sense of that than I can.

 There are some strong monetary shifts taking place at the moment. Both the recent past and what’s in store over the next few months represent quite a change.

You have links at the moment with people abroad, which are quite interesting, and will look to yield worthwhile results. You’re naturally a little disorganized. A look around your living space would show a box of photos, unorganized into albums, out-of-date medicines, broken items not thrown out, and notes to yourself which are significantly out of date. Something related to this is that you lack motivation. Because you’re resourceful and talented enough to be pretty successful when you put your mind to things, this encourages you to procrastinate and put them off. Equally, you’ve given up dreams a little easily when your mind flitted elsewhere. There are in your home signs of an excursion into playing a musical instrument, which you have since abandoned, or are finding yourself less interested in. (This may alternatively relate to poetry and creative writing you’ve briefly tried your hand at and left behind you.) You have a real capacity for deciding that such-and-such a thing (or so-and-so a person) will be the be all and end all of everything and be with you for ever. But you’d rather try and fail, and swing from one extreme to the other, than settle for the little that you see others content with.

 Conclusion: It’s very interesting doing your reading, as you do present something of a conundrum, which won’t surprise you. You are certainly bright, but unusually open to life’s possibilities – something not normally found among achieving people. I’d say you’d do well to be less self-absorbed, as it tends to distance you a little, and to relinquish some of the control you exercise when you present that stylized version of yourself to others. You could let people in a little more, but I am aware that there is a darkness you feel you should hide (much of this is in the personal/relationship/sexual area, and is related to a neediness which you don’t like).

You really have an appealing personality – genuinely. Many thanks for doing this, and for offering something far more substantial than most.

 

Andrew J Speirs Email me at  aj.73@hotmail.co.uk

MAGIC – got to love plagiarism

Magical thinking in anthropology, psychology, and cognitive science is nonscientific causal reasoning that often includes such ideas as associative thinking, the ability of the mind to affect the physical world (see the philosophical problem of mental causation), and correlation mistaken for causation. Symbolic expression may be brought into play, as well as the use of metaphor, metonym, and synchronicity. Practitioners of magic are often portrayed as irrational, but some theorists maintain that the magician’s goals are not necessarily physical, and that magical practices are, in some cases, genuinely efficacious.

Magic

Many years ago David Devent, the great English conjurer, was approached by an acquaintance new to slight of hand with cards. “Mr. Devant,” said this young man, “I know three hundred tricks with cards. “how many do you know?” Devant glanced at the youth quizzically. “I should say,” the magician responded dryly, “that I know about eight”
Devant was making a point with which all professional magicians are familiar. To perform card tricks entertainingly you must not only know how the tricks are done, but how to do them. There is a vast difference between the two, and if proof were needed, one need only watch the same feat performed by a novice and by an expert card conjurer. The novice knows the mechanics of so many tricks that he cannot do any one feat really well; the professional performs a smaller number of tricks which he knows how to present in such a way as to creat the greatest possible impression upon those who watch.

Psychological trick

Psychological trick:

Think of a number between 0 and 50
Take the two digits and add them together, then minus them from your original number, think of this new number, now check the grid for your number.

00 – magician
01 – chair
02 – cards
03 – book
04 – T.V.
05 – drums
06 – jacket
07 – cat
08 – car
09 – magician
10 – pool table
11 – bed
12 – cloud
13 – book
14 – suit
15 – door
16 – lighthouse
17 – wall
18 – magician
19 – toilet
20 – light bulb
21 – DVD player
22 – guitar
23 – pie
24 – dress
25 – wig
26 – juice
27 – magician
28 – brain
29 – stage
30 – coins
31 – shoes
32 – socks
33 – door mat
34 – bus
35 – camera
36 – magician
37 – hat
38 – glasses
39 – mirror
40 – paint
41 – tree
42 – painting
43 – VHS
44 – computer
45 – magician
46 – moon
47 – star
48 – sun
49 – lipstick
59 – ukulele

Keep that word in mind, leave a comment and I’ll message the word you thought of to you!

Weekend o fun

Well hello, thanks for taking the time to read this.

It’s been a long weekend. Feel like the weekend started early, on Thursday of all days.

Thursday:

Was performing at magic club, all went as planned. My first effect was inspired by a Mr Derren Brown, he’s “theroy” on winning the loto got me thinking. The effect went as so. A prediction was handed out to hold. Then I got a 1-2-3 deck shuffled (1-2-3 deck, has all the numbers up to 52). 6 cards were selected, and they just so happened to match the prediction. Second effect was “big deal” by Joshua jay. Card is selected and lost in the deck. Then cards are dealt out, and the last card was the one selected, also the piles created from dealing hold the best hands in the games; blackjack, poker and bridge. Final effect was an effect I made: a card is thought of, another person deals cards face up on the table, then one face down card is dealt, and it matchs the thought of card.

‘Twas a good night full of fun and laughing. Also picked up some ideas and a couple of effects for myself.

Friday:

Friday was a lovely night of sing song and banter. Went to the Indiecode gig! Was an awesome night, had great fun with friends partying it up. Was jumping about with Conn, right next to the stage. Would love to go again. Would recommend it to anyone! Well worth the money.

Saturday:

Saturday started with work :(. But that went by quickly, then it was a four hour drive to Blackpool! The drive was okay, had the normal pick-nic of sweets. (well sweets and a pasta salad, but mabey that’s just me) The drive only took three and a half hours, cough, didn’t even break the speed limit. Got to the venue, got tickets, got to wait in the queue. But only after using a blackpool toilet. Was quite impressed, a good 40% of the pee was in the toilet! Another 40% on the floor and walls, and an impressive 20% on the ceiling. But then we got seated, got drinks and waited for the show to start. The hypnotist, Ken Webster, was amazing!!! If you ever get the chance, see him! After the show, back to the hotel, and straight to bed.

Sunday:

Up early to MLA convention, master locksmith association. Had a good time looking through the stands. Got lots of freebees! And went on an hour course called “advanced key manipulation”, sounds impressive but not really 😛 . Then it was the long five and a half hour drive home.

Overall, a great weekend! Spent most of my time in the car, but all worth it fir the experience.

Bye for now. 🙂

Andrew

Erm… Hi?

Well I have Given into; facebook Twitter, bebo, so I thought; “why not start a blog”.

So here I am!

My name is Andrew J Speirs, I’m 17.

I’m a magician, I manly do close-up, but also a lot of mentalism (derren brown style).

I’ve started in hypnotism, have hypnotised some people, but hope to gain more knowledge on the subject.

Would love to perform, and get paid, but enjoy it as a hobby for now.

Will hope to update in the future.

Till then

Goodbye, goodnight, good day.

Andrew

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