Appearance
The Joker is usually depicted as a court jester. There are usually two Jokers per deck, often noticeably different. For instance, Bicycle Playing Cards prints their company's guarantee claim on only one. More common traits are the appearance of colored and black/non-colored Jokers. At times, the Jokers will each be colored to match the colors used for suits; there will be a red Joker, and a black Joker. In games where the jokers may need to be compared, the red, full-color, or larger-graphic Joker usually outranks the black, monochrome, or smaller-graphic one. If the joker colors are similar, the joker without a guarantee will outrank the guaranteed one. With the red and black jokers, the red one can alternately be counted as a heart/diamond and the black is used to substitute clubs/spades.
In the USA-Produced Bicycle brand of playing cards, The Joker sometimes bears an S superimposed over a U as its index symbol. This is a trademark of the U.S. Playing Card Company. In Canada, the US monogram is replaced by a star.
In Australia, the Joker in the Queen's Slipper brand of playing cards depicts a Kookaburra, a bird native to Australia with a call which resembles human laughter. In Australian games of 500, the Joker is often referred to colloquially as 'The Bird'. Most other decks simply use a stylized "J" or the word "JOKER" in the corner index.
In Portugal, Litografia Maia has printed French decks where the Joker figure is substituted by a donkey head. It is intended to be used in Burro em pé ("standing donkey").
The publishers of playing cards trademark their jokers, which have unique artwork that can reflect contemporary culture.
Like sports trading cards, jokers are often priced by collectors. Many unusual jokers are available for purchase on line while other collectible jokers are catalogued online for viewing.
Read more about this topic: Joker (playing Card)
Famous quotes containing the word appearance:
“Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Men of all professions affect such an air and appearance as to seem to be what they wish to be believed to be—so that one might say the whole world is made up of nothing but appearances.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Now the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 24:17.