Cards and Suits
A traditional Spanish deck consists of four suits of ten numbered cards (1-7, and 10-12, with 10,11 and 12 being picture cards). Very rarely the eights and nines are added to create a 48-card deck. Jokers are not used, except in the rare 50 (that is, 48 plus 2) cards deck (where they are called comodines). The four suits are bastos (clubs), oros (literally "golds", that is, golden coins), copas (cups) and espadas (swords).
The four suits are thought to represent the four social classes of the Middle Ages. The suit of coins represents the merchants, the clubs represents the peasants, the cups represent the church and the swords represent the military.
The last three cards of each suit have pictures similar to the jack, queen, and king in an Anglo-French deck, and rank identically. They are the sota, which is similar to the jack and generally depicts a page or prince, the caballo (knight, literally "horse"), and the rey (king) respectively.
There are instances of ancient decks having both caballo and reina (queen), being the caballo of lower value than queen. These decks have no numbers in the figure values, not even letters like in the Anglo-American-French deck. They have been not common for playing in Spain, but some German decks retain the four different figures, albeit lacking most of the numbered cards.
It is also possible to find 52-card Anglo-American-French decks with Spanish pictures.
Read more about this topic: Baraja (playing Cards)
Famous quotes containing the words cards and, cards and/or suits:
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—Unknown. The Rantin Laddie (l. 1–4)
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“The sole art that suits me is that which, rising from unrest, tends toward serenity.”
—André Gide (1869–1951)