page_title: French playing cards
section_title: English pattern
hierarchical_section_title: French playing cards / Current standard patterns / English pattern
caption_attribution_description: English: comparison of the King of Hearts of the Ruen pattern.
context_page_description: French playing cards or French-suited playing cards are cards that use the French suits of trèfles, carreaux, cœurs, and piques. Each suit contains three face cards; the valet, the dame, and the roi. Aside from these aspects, decks can include a wide variety of regional and national patterns which often have different deck sizes. In comparison to Spanish, Italian, German, and Swiss playing cards, French cards are the most widespread due to the geopolitical, commercial, and cultural influence of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States in the past two centuries. Other reasons for their popularity were the simplicity of the suit insignia, which simplifies mass production, and the popularity of whist and contract bridge. The English pattern of French-suited cards is so widespread that it is often also known as the International or Anglo-American pattern.
context_section_description: Card makers from Rouen began exporting to England around 1480. Since Latin-suited cards were already circulating in England, the English renamed French suits to the Latin ones with which they were familiar. Hence the clovers were called clubs and pikes were named after the swords (spade). The English did not start producing their own cards until a century later. In 1628, the importation of foreign playing cards was banned to protect local manufacturers. English cardmakers produced lower quality cards than their continental counterparts leading to the loss of detail from the Rouennais pattern. Today's pattern is the result of Charles Goodall and Son's reworking of the old Rouen pattern during the 19th century. The majority of decks sold in this pattern is the 52 card deck. One deck invented in the United States but more commonly found in Australia and New Zealand contains 11s, 12s, and red 13s to play the six-handed version of the Euchre variant 500. In the late nineteenth century, they were also used for variants of draw poker and royal cassino. Decks marketed for Canasta often have card point values printed on the cards.
caption: Evolution of the king of hearts from the Rouennais to English pattern
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