week4

During the 15th century, Germans introduced wooden blocks printing technique to produce playing cards. They could quickly export these cards throughout Europe because of their lower costs. The substitution of wood blocking and hand coloring with copper plate engraving during the 16th century was the next significant innovation in the manufacturing of playing cards. The mass printing of playing cards was revolutionized with the introduction of color lithography in the early 19th century.

It is believed that playing cards were invented in China.Chinese playing cards, as we understand the term today, date from at least 1294, when Yen Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog were apparently caught gambling in Enzhou (in modern Shandong Province).Cards entered Europe from the Islamic empire. The earliest authentic references to playing-cards in Europe date from 1377. Europe changed the Islamic symbols such as scimitars and cups into graphical representations of kings, Queens, knights and jesters. Different European countries adopted different suits system, for instance Italian, Spanish, German and some other countries deck of cards, even today, do not have queens.