{"id":2446,"date":"2020-11-12T15:17:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T15:17:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.doxzoo.com\/?p=2446"},"modified":"2020-11-12T15:17:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T15:17:55","slug":"why-are-playing-cards-the-size-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/why-are-playing-cards-the-size-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are Playing Cards The Size They Are?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Playing cards, trading cards and business cards are available at a strikingly similar size, but each came to this size for very different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When you decide to print flash cards online, there is a range of sizes you can choose, from as large of A7 to as small as a business card (55mm x 85mm).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This size, depending on the nuances of a printer, is the same as those used for printing playing cards, as well as trading cards and stickers, despite there being no universal standard for any of these and nothing stops a printer from making cards in any size outside of material costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reasons for this take us to the early history of playing cards, the first of the three types of card to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Search For A Standard<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Playing cards, like most early game tools, have a somewhat complicated history as different cultures had their own sets of cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has been evidence of playing cards<\/a> around the 9th century AD in Tang dynasty China, although whether they are connected to the first sets of cards found in Europe is completely speculative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first confirmed deck of cards was mentioned in a 1377 manuscript and even as early as the 15th-century decks with 52 cards were known to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst they had very different designs and suits than those we see today, already the idea of four suits and a set of numbered cards plus additional court cards had taken hold, with Spain having a 40 card deck with seven numbered cards, a king, knight and knave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spread of the printing press throughout the 15th century also spread the rise of card games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Woodcuts, metal engravings and copper enabled the mass production of playing cards in Germany, and Gutenberg\u2019s press in 1440 meant that they could be printed even more efficiently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason why playing cards use the designs they do is that they were based on French designs, which were the first to be produced in gigantic quantities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The size \u2018standards\u2019 came several hundred years later, although even then they are somewhat up for debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Card Revolution<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The 19th Century would be where many of these card standards would form, although it is difficult to determine which entirely came first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The predecessor to the business card is the visiting card, which came about in the late 18th century and became invaluable in the 19th century and Europe had a standard size of 55mm x 85mm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst there are variations of a millimetre or more in other regions, this size stuck and became the standard for business cards as the tradition of the visiting card diminished in the 20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trading cards came from a very similar standard, the carte de visite. Named after but largely unrelated to the visiting card outside of dimensions, these were photographs on cards that became major collector’s items.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These eventually began being sold in cigarette packets and by the middle of the 20th century had become a completely new industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for playing cards, two very popular games in the United States, poker and contract bridge, had become very popular and led to two different kinds of playing card size<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slightly narrower bridge cards were popular because that game relied on a large number of cards being in a player\u2019s hand at once, and was important to see their value at a glance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We offer flashcard printer<\/a> service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Playing cards, trading cards and business cards are available at a strikingly similar size, but each came to this size for very different reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[172],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-print-flash-cards-online"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doxzoo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}