Joker (playing card)
The Joker is a playing card found in most modern French-suited card decks, as an addition to the standard four suits (Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades). From the second half of the 20th century, they have also been found in Spanish- and Italian-suited decks, excluding stripped decks. The Joker originated in the United States during the Civil War, and was created as a trump card for the game of Euchre. It has since been adopted into many other card games, where it often acts as a wild card, but may have other functions such as  the top trump, a skip card (forcing another player to miss a turn), the lowest-ranking card, the highest-value card or a card of a different value from the rest of the pack (see e.g. Zwickern which has 6 Jokers with this function). By contrast, a wild card is any card that may be used to represent another card or cards; it need not be a Joker. Origin. The game of Euchre is credited with the introduction of the Joker into card games. However, Euchre began life with no Joker. In the earliest rules of 1844, 32 standard cards  are used and the "Right Bower", the trump Jack, was the "commanding card" with the "Left Bower", the Jack of the same colour, as the second-highest card. The Joker makes its first official appearance in a set of rules in 1868 where it turns out to be a blank specimen card not intended for actual play. This gave rise to a variant game called "Euchre with the Joker" in which the blank card ranked above all the rest. It must have been in use even earlier, however, since the term "Best Bower" appears in a satirical 1861 piece about  the American Civil War, and in fact Samuel Hart is credited with printing the first illustrated "Best Bower" card in 1863 with his "Imperial Bower". Best Bower-type Jokers continued to be produced well into the 20th century. Cards labelled "Joker" began appearing around the late 1860s, with some depicting clowns and jesters. The idea behind the three top cards in Euchre appears to have originated from Germany where the games Juckerspiel and Bester Bube ("Best Bower") also used Jacks as best, right and left bowers. It is also believed that the term "Joker" comes from "Juckerspiel", which is also  known as "Jucker", the original German spelling of Euchre. One British manufacturer, Charles Goodall, was manufacturing packs with Jokers for the American market in 1871. The first Joker for the domestic British market was sold in 1874. Italians call Jokers "Jolly", for many early cards were labelled "Jolly Joker". The notion of a Joker was later transferred to the game of Poker where it was initially called the Mistigris. This happened around 1875, where it functioned as a wild card. Packs with two Jokers started to become the norm during the late 1940s for the game of Canasta. Since the  1950s, German and Austrian packs have included three Jokers to play German Rummy. In Poland, the third Joker is known as the blue Joker because the KZWP monopoly during the Polish People's Republic printed all third Jokers blue. In Schleswig-Holstein, Zwickern packs come with six Jokers. Appearance. Jokers do not have any standardized appearance across the card manufacturing industry. Each company produces their own depictions of the card. The publishers of playing cards trademark their Jokers, which have unique artwork that often reflect contemporary culture. Out of convention, Jokers tend to be illustrated as jesters. There are usually  two Jokers per deck, often noticeably different. For instance, the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) prints their company's guarantee claim on only one. At times, the Jokers will each be colored to match the colors used for suits; e.g., 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 one can alternately be counted as a Club/Spade. The Unicode for playing cards provide symbols for three Jokers: red, black, and white. Many decks do not provide the Joker with a corner index symbol; of those that do, the most common is a solid star (as is the case with Bee cards). It is also common for decks to simply display the word “JOKER” in the corner. Bicycle cards use a “US” monogram as the Joker index. Collecting. Joker collecting has been popular for an  unknown amount of time, but with the advent of the Internet and social media, it has emerged as a hobby. Many unusual Jokers are available for purchase online, while other collectible Jokers are catalogued online for viewing. "Guinness World Records" has recognized Denoto de Santis, an Italian magician, as having the world's largest collection of Jokers. Tarot and Tarock card games. The Joker is often compared to "(the) Fool" in the Tarot or Tarock decks. They share many similarities both in appearance and play function. In central Europe, the Fool, or "Sküs", is the highest trump; elsewhere as an  excuse ("L'Excuse") that can be played at any time to avoid following suit, but cannot win. Cartomancy. Practitioners of cartomancy often include a Joker in the standard 52-card deck with a meaning similar to the Fool card of Tarot. Sometimes, the two Jokers are used. An approach is to identify the "black" Joker with a rank of zero with the Fool and the "red" Joker with "the Magician", also known as "the Juggler", which is a card with a rank of one that is somewhat similar in interpretation and is considered the first step in the "Fool's  Journey". Use of the Joker in card games. In a standard deck, there are usually two Jokers. The Joker's use varies greatly. Many use it as a wild card, which allows it to represent other existing cards. The term "Joker's wild" originates from this practice. The Joker can be an extremely beneficial, or an extremely harmful, card. In Euchre it is often used to represent the highest trump. In Gin Rummy it is wild. However, in the children's game of Old Maid, a solitary Joker represents the Old Maid, a card to be avoided. Role in patience  (solitaire) games. Generally, the Joker is omitted from Patience (game)|patience game s as in many others of its type. However, there are variations of solitaire games where a Joker does take part, most often as a wild card.