English Court Patterns

"The appearance of the typical English playing card, as we know it today, is well known throughout the world because of the ubiquity of card games like bridge, rummy, poker and canasta.
It derives originally from designs produced in France before 1516. These show entirely credible and well-executed pictures of elegant persons wearing the typical elaborate court costumes of the period (on English cards these are
Tudor costumes). These designs, like others, were soon disfigured by uninformed and unskilled copying by block makers, particularly by incompetent English artisans, who produced the grotesque distortions from which our modern cards are ultimately descended."

NO doubt it is the most common pattern in the world, therefore it is often referred to as International Standard.
Personally I think this is a shame, because they usually display only a handful of colours.Therefore in this section I will display English Courts with a difference.

This is basically the STANDARD ENGLISH Pattern, with the slight variation, that the 4 suits each have their own individual colour (as opposed to only Black & Red). ª = Blue, © = Red, ¨ = Orange & § = Green.
These decks are usually produced in order to make it easier to distinguish the suits.

SPECTRUM by Carta Mundi:

"Swiss Bridge": by AGM, Switzerland 1985 (52cards +3 different Jokers)    (acquired from R Somerville)
Interesting colourful courts
based on the English pattern, all courts are holding the right accessories (Kings & Jacks with weapons, Queens holding flowers), and these are all in the right places.

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